Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[Joij21]

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Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan approve of this reasoning.

They don't exist anymore. Besides by decentralization I mean more like limiting the power of the executive branch and give more power to Congress.

 

[Cutlass]

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They don't exist anymore. Besides by decentralization I mean more like limiting the power of the executive branch and give more power to Congress.

That's not how the term is usually used in the US. But that said, yes, Congress should be more the dominant branch. And their loss of power to the executive and the courts has been a long time in process. If anything, the courts are the dominant power now. The Founders intended Congress to be dominant. Congress choose to delegate some of it's power to the executive, in the form of the administrative state. Which the courts have recently taken away much of Congress's power to do so. Congress also ceded much of it's national security power, in terms of things just happen too fast in the nuclear age. But presidents have also been exceeding their authority. And Congress has lost the power to control that. Congress has also not been innocent, in that they just aren't doing their jobs. Much of Obama's so called exceeding his authority really came down to Congress failing to act. Leaving him with no choices. If Congress will not do it's job, then the president becomes more powerful.

 

[Joij21]

That's not how the term is usually used in the US. But that said, yes, Congress should be more the dominant branch. And their loss of power to the executive and the courts has been a long time in process. If anything, the courts are the dominant power now. The Founders intended Congress to be dominant. Congress choose to delegate some of it's power to the executive, in the form of the administrative state. Which the courts have recently taken away much of Congress's power to do so. Congress also ceded much of it's national security power, in terms of things just happen too fast in the nuclear age. But presidents have also been exceeding their authority. And Congress has lost the power to control that. Congress has also not been innocent, in that they just aren't doing their jobs. Much of Obama's so called exceeding his authority really came down to Congress failing to act. Leaving him with no choices. If Congress will not do it's job, then the president becomes more powerful.

I think a lot of it has to do with the party system and them getting frustrated whenever the balance of power between the two parties becomes close. So both sides have allowed the executive branch to grow larger with the implication that if they can just get their guy in then they can use his executive orders to bypass the deliberation process. What they don't get however is when you do that you're also strengthening the executive branch to be weaponized by your rivals if they get their president into the oval office. Or worse an outsider could come in and destroy everything for both parties.

But I disagree that the judicial branch is the most powerful. The executive is, it chooses the justices and they can die fast if they all happen to be old and on the way out. Get a certain president in power at just the right time and you get what we got. If the supreme justices had to be chosen exclusively by the Congress it would force them to deliberate and compromise on who the Justice pick should be else the judicial branch would be left inoperable. Also by leaving the choosing of justices to Congress it would better reflect the total makeup of the US, since the president only speaks for one party at a time and can win through an upset election whereby the margins are close and he only represents half or slightly less than half (because of the EC) of the electorate. After all the justices are there for life.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If the supreme justices had to be chosen exclusively by the Congress it would force them to deliberate and compromise on who the Justice pick should be else the judicial branch would be left inoperable.

We used to have something like this, actually, and not too long ago. A 60% majority of Senators was needed for confirmation. And when every played along it was precisely as a result of the thinking that this would always force more moderate picks, that at least some on the opposite side could get on board for. (maybe a bit limiting when your side is up; but good when they're not, so on the whole good). Another moderating practice lost to our present partisanship.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Harris' lead is up to 2.2% on RCP. It's holding at 2.9% on 538.

 

[KMRblue1027]

We used to have something like this, actually, and not too long ago. A 60% majority of Senators was needed for confirmation. And when every played along it was precisely as a result of the thinking that this would always force more moderate picks, that at least some on the opposite side could get on board for. (maybe a bit limiting when your side is up; but good when they're not, so on the whole good). Another moderating practice lost to our present partisanship.

If you go back far enough the threshold was even higher at 2/3rds but was slowly reduced. I honestly blame the pro forma session for a lot of this

 

[Gori the Grey]

If you go back far enough the threshold was even higher at 2/3rds but was slowly reduced. I honestly blame the pro forma session for a lot of this

It really served us well, I think. It was a kind of gentleman's agreement: if you don't nominate anyone too far to the left, we'll approve that person, but you have to approve ours when we get a chance, as long as we don't nominate anyone too far to the right.

With such an agreement functionally in place, the president is freed (both forced and freed, actually) to focus mostly just on sound judicial reasoning, and so you get a court chosen with that as a main criterion.

The president always tries to get an edge for his party: as left-leaning as I can get 66 senators to approve. So there were still "liberal" and "conservative" judges. But the president isn't positively trying to get the most extremely partisan person possible, as now.

It's all a side effect of Roe, I guess. That ruling went so far against what the right believes on that issue, that 1) it underscored the critical importance of having your own side's justices in place and 2) it motived a 50-year, no-holds-barred effort by the Federalist society and others to secure that power within our system.

 

[Farm Boy]

But you have rationalizing little tw..ihts everywhere in thought silos that reject the very premise of judicial reasoning. Instead projecting that the world at large chooses based on preference and then rationalizes to the goal like they do.

Which, the more siloed people are, the more true is.

Roe was decided by a Republican appointed SCOTUS. Overturning Roe, freeing the state-by-state import/export "planning service businesses" to go full freedom optimization(and increase business in the relevant market) happened from a Republican appointed SCOTUS. But now a French style abortion law, delineating early access rights and late-cutoff without justification is a "national abortion ban." People are really dumb at figuring out who does what.

Why ?

It would seem to me that one of the great merits of the united states is that if one is not
happy in one state, one can move to another state where things are run differently.

But man alive do they have problems with it when somebody is free to pick up and leave them. Then that's a problem with the very system itself. Unless it's somebody leaving another place to come give them service. Then it's fine. Of course. Probably good for whoever they left and whatever the hell they do there again. Because <insert whatever reason>.

 

[Zardnaar]

As this campaign goes on, I think Trump is gonna lose.

I think you could fairly say that politically, his Supreme Court choices will hurt the Republicans for generations. Dodd is disastrous for them. If he had made his nominees swear not to go at Roe, he'd be in a much stronger position.

It's odd that he, of all people, was the man to appoint the Christian moralists to the bench. Shouldn't he have realized? Just so strange.

I've got that opinion as well. Few months ago I said he woukd win.

There's to many must win states he's teetering in with possibilities of shock losses.

I'm not 100% convinced eg 60-40. Thoughts atm.

 

[choxorn]

But now a French style abortion law, delineating early access rights and late-cutoff without justification is a "national abortion ban." People are really dumb at figuring out who does what.

I think we both know they want a full on ban and will stop at nothing to get it, and we know because they're saying so themselves and because that's more or less what they're doing in most Red states- if it's not 100% banned, it's banned so early in pregnancy and with such limited exceptions that it might as well be a full ban, to the point that people literally having miscarriages who will die without medical care can't get it because that might violate the abortion ban if the fetus is technically still "alive."

 

[Samson]

Project 2025 mastermind allegedly told colleagues he killed a dog with a shovel

The man behind Project 2025, the rightwing policy manifesto that includes calls for a sharp increase in immigrant deportations if Donald Trump is elected, told university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking and disturbing his family, according to former colleagues who spoke to the Guardian.

“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog. End of problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was chair of the university’s history department at the time.

Two other people – a professor and her spouse - recall hearing a similar account directly from Roberts at a dinner at his home. Three other professors also said they heard the account at that time from the colleagues who said they had heard it directly from Roberts.

In a statement to the Guardian, Roberts denied ever killing a dog with a shovel. He did not answer questions about why several people say he told them that he had.

“This is a patently untrue and baseless story backed by zero evidence. In 2004, a neighbor’s chained pit bull attempted to jump a fence into my backyard as I was gardening with my young daughter. Thankfully, the owner arrived in time to restrain the animal before it could get loose and attack us.”

In his statement, Roberts claimed that the city later arrived and removed “more than ten dogs” from his neighbor’s property, citing animal abuse. He said he was “incredibly grateful” to animal control for rescuing the “abused animals” and was grateful that he and his daughter did not have physical contact with the dog.

The Guardian did track down Daniel Aran, whose mother Norma Noriega still lives in the adobe home next to where Roberts previously lived in Las Cruces.

When asked if he had a dog disappear around 2004, he said: “Yes, definitely, my dog, Loca, my little female”. She had been his favorite, he said.

“I had one female, and that was her. She was a little, little thing like this,” he said, holding up his hands in an affectionate gesture. “She was a tiny, cute little thing.”

“She went missing, and we never could find her,” he said.

When he was asked by the Guardian about comments Roberts allegedly made to colleagues about killing a neighborhood pit bull with a shovel, he grimaced. “Man, you never know what’s inside someone’s head.”

Aran also denied Roberts’s claim that dogs had been taken away from the property.

“We had three dogs that we kept, and then there were puppies occasionally that I would sell,” he said.

Asked about his recollection of Roberts, Aran said: “Well, it’s been more than 20 years,” and he did acknowledge that his dogs could be noisy.

“I’m pretty sure he had to have some patience,” said Aran. “But, as far as I can remember, he never came across as disrespectful,” he said.

 

[GenMarshall]

No worries. I feel I'm under obligation to you, not the other way around. I said I would try to address your election concerns in good faith, and so when I see elements of Harris' platform that I think might appeal to your stated concerns, I point them out.

Trust your own judgment. Did you watch the debate? If not, do so. You won't have any doubt which commentators are just making an honest assessment and which are trying to spin it to the loser's advantage.

I’ve already made mentioned that I’ve facepalmed at Harris when she brought up the “very fine people” controversy. I felt that, at least for me, is a fumble on her part.

I’m still not enthusiastic about hopping onto the Harris train yet the more I see Trump turning more and more into a toxic sludge monster makes even voting for him, just to spite mean leftists, gets even much less and less desirable. It’s why I was hoping for a non-woke third party candidate a few months ago.

I’m largely at the point of just saying “fudge it, I ain’t voting & fudge politics!”.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think we both know they want a full on ban and will stop at nothing to get it, and we know because they're saying so themselves and because that's more or less what they're doing in most Red states- if it's not 100% banned, it's banned so early in pregnancy and with such limited exceptions that it might as well be a full ban, to the point that people literally having miscarriages who will die without medical care can't get it because that might violate the abortion ban if the fetus is technically still "alive."

You should pay closer attention to the red states. They aren't all the same, but they're trending, relatively quickly, considering they're actually bothering to amend thier constitutions as it goes along. Yes, there are the hard fringe, but they're losing steer of the ship on one side.

The other side is actually the murder fringe. The actual leading issue. No chance that's getting resolved, at all, willingly.

 

[aelf]

Killbots, murder fringe. The names get so creative. What next? Baby gutter?

 

[Lexicus]

Speaking of the "murder fringe", you can tell how "pro-life" these sick freaks are by the fact that Missouri is about to execute an innocent man this evening and they don't give a flying fudge about it

 

[Farm Boy]

Will probably just continue using "Democrat" most of the time.

If you're feeling left out, I guess you could let me know. There's probably some good ones for an Asian bourgeoisie. Probably lots of them. Seems a broad category. You're probably better at that one than me.

 

[Zardnaar]

I’ve already made mentioned that I’ve facepalmed at Harris when she brought up the “very fine people” controversy. I felt that, at least for me, is a fumble on her part.

I’m still not enthusiastic about hopping onto the Harris train yet the more I see Trump turning more and more into a toxic sludge monster makes even voting for him, just to spite mean leftists, gets even much less and less desirable. It’s why I was hoping for a non-woke third party candidate a few months ago.

I’m largely at the point of just saying “fudge it, I ain’t voting & fudge politics!”.

The worst mist annoying online leftist is still an improvement over Trump's base.

Most don't exist in real life at least to that extent. Online a few are also trolls or bad faith right uses or other extremists I suspect.

Actual Marxist here I think there's like 30 at the university (population 130k). Right wing boogeyman.

Trump's just gone full mask off.

Real change if it happens is going to be slow with the boomer die off. Generational.

 

[Lexicus]

Will probably just continue using "Democrat" most of the time.

All three of the appointees of Democratic presidents on the Supreme Court just voted to grant the stay of Missouri's execution of an innocent man, while the six appointed by Republican Presidents voted to deny it. All six. "Murder fringe" baby.

 

[choxorn]

You should pay closer attention to the red states. They aren't all the same, but they're trending, relatively quickly, considering they're actually bothering to amend thier constitutions as it goes along. Yes, there are the hard fringe, but they're losing steer of the ship on one side.

The other side is actually the murder fringe. The actual leading issue. No chance that's getting resolved, at all, willingly.

That some red states are voting to put abortion rights in their constitutions is because of actual democracy in place, where the voters are voting to put those protections in place despite the best efforts of the Republican politicians in control.

There are no such mechanisms in place nationally for the people of America to vote for constitutional amendments or simple ballot initiatives or anything like that, and like I said, the Republican party really really would like to enact a total national abortion ban if they got the power to.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Abortion politically is interesting. Republicans are compelled to take a hard line because of primary dynamics, but this hard line is not palatable to the general electorate.

I imagine the more cynical Republican operators privately curse the decision. Most must claim to really really want a nationwide ban, many probably secretly hoping Harris somehow succeeds in protecting abortion access.

To be on the attack on this issue puts wind in the sails.