AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
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User ID: 2498
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
I dunno, I think highlighting your opponent's weird ideological obsessions is a good play. No one is threatened by jewish space lasers either but if Marjorie Taylor-Greene were Trump's VP pick you bet we'd be hearing about them.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
If I'm advising her, I'm telling her to avoid every interview possible. She's a terrible interviewee. She gets nervous, says ridiculous things, and laughs awkwardly at things that aren't even remotely funny.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
On one hand, yes, the decision by Democrats to stop asking America to vote for an Alzheimer's patient has dramatically improved their prospects.
On the other hand, I think it's a bit silly to ascribe any particular genius to Harris or her campaign. She has a pulse, and that's honestly enough to be competitive against Trump.
AshLael
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2mo ago
True, but there's a Republican house right now, and if the Democrats win the house my understanding is that the new congress doesn't sit until Jan 13th, and it would be pretty remarkable to pass a bill like this a week into a new congress.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
If I'm reading that language right, the effect would be that the president makes his two nominations each term, and if that pushes the number of justices above 9, the older ones don't vote on appellate cases (i.e. most cases).
If this version were enacted President Harris would almost certainly miss the date for the first nomination, and so only get at most one nomination. Doesn't seem like the scenario @Felagund is worried about would occur.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
I guess that's possible, but it would depend on the technical language of the bill, which we don't have. It could also end up being written in a way where that potential outcome doesn't occur. And by the time it made its way through the judicial process it could end up being the President after next who first gets to use it. Seems a bit early to be declaring it an end-run around court-packing norms just yet.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
Surely Thomas, Alito, and Roberts would have standing.
Though of course they would need to recuse themselves from the case if it got to SCOTUS which creates its own complications.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
Constitutionally, there's nothing specifying 9 seats. That's only by statute and convention.
Sure, I get that. But you guys have the whole thing where new statutes get stayed when they are challenged in court. So in this scenario where the Democrats pass a bill allowing them to appoint new justices, that new law gets challenged and reviewed before it goes into operation, right? So there wouldn't be any new appointments prior to the bill being found unconstitutional, unless I've misunderstood something.
Besides which, the law as it stands says it's 9 justices. So even if appointments get made, if the new law is overturned then you go back to that. So in a scenario where Alito/Roberts/Thomas were given "senior status" and new appointments were made, then the law gets found unconstitutional... then you have 12 justices and the law says there can only be 9. So the first most obvious thing is not to allow that circumstance to occur in the first place, and the second most obvious thing is to invalidate the new appointments made under an unconstitutional law.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
Wouldn't it still be the case that justices need to retire before their replacements take their places? And that Alito/Roberts/Thomas would not retire before the courts determined whether or not the law was constitutional?
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
Gough Whitlam had a similar (though more vulgar) formulation: "Only the impotent are pure".
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
2mo ago
I think it's a case of typical-minding. Progressives like the message, so they spread the message thinking that other people will like it too. Republicans do the same thing - "I am your retribution" is not a selling point to anyone not already on the Trump train.
I think you over-estimate the amount of secret coordination that occurs. Coordination happens a lot, but it often happens pretty publicly. Politicians frequently use the media to talk to each other. I don't think this was a case of the Harris campaign circulating memos saying "hey we're going to call republicans weird". I think it was a case of one guy saying a thing, other progressives liking and repeating it, and still other progressives going "Oh I guess this is the line we're running with now? Sounds good, let's reinforce it." Now, possibly somewhere along the line we get an actual focus group message testing this pitch to see how it does with swing voters, and possibly the line gets dropped or modified in response to that research, but I don't think that's the first or even the fifth step in this process.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
I think once you've locked yourself into picking a black woman it's entirely defensible to go with Harris over a Stacy Abrams or a Susan Rice. Harris was a US Senator, Abrams used to be a member of the Georgia legislature and lost the race for Governor, Rice thought about running against Susan Collins in Maine but decided not to.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
Honestly I think the motivation is that leftists have a bunch of internalised self-consciousness about weirdness. Part of that's driven by the fact that they are broadly the on the side of transgenderism, drag time story hour, polyamory, and other non-mainstream lifestyle choices. Republicans have spent ages hammering them for being insufficiently patriotic, for not caring about the heartland of America, etc etc. And Democrats reject those attacks, but they still hear them and get kind of defensive about it. It's like right wingers and accusations of racism.
And so in my interpretation "Republicans are weird" is the mirror of "Democrats are the real racists". It's not actually an argument that is going to convince any of the people you might plausibly be aiming it at, it's more a story your side is telling itself about why the people who don't like you are actually guilty of the thing they keep accusing you of.
AshLael
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3mo ago
It started with Tim Walz doing an interview on MSNBC where he used the phrasing and Democrats loved it and piled on. The ad was part of the pile on.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
I do wonder, did civil war-era Americans even use the "left" and "right" labels? I know that the terminology originated in the French Revolution, so there's no reason they couldn't have, but I haven't heard them used in that context.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
I don't get what makes you see it as "reveling in cruelty". Sentencing remarks typically go through the details of the offense, mitigating and aggravating factors, the impacts of the conviction, etc, etc in a very thorough way. I can't find the actual court documents but I did find a longer quote:
Sentencing him, Judge Francis Sheridan said: “You were a hugely talented athlete who enjoyed the adulation of the crowd but you also have a dark side and it is that that brought you to court.
“Prior to coming to this country you were training as a potential Olympian. Your hopes of representing your country now lie as a shattered dream.
“Your actions in those two days in England have wrecked your life and you could, had you never come to England and committed these offences, have been a leader in your sport.
“You had been in the UK for little over six hours when you allowed this girl to give you oral sex. That is rape on account of her age.
“She instigated that activity as she thought that was what you do when you are ‘in love’. That justifies why the law in England is as wise as it is in prohibiting a child from consenting.
“A young, naive foolish young child had formed the view that you loved her. In reality you only knew her on the Internet, had never met her before and were fully aware of the age difference.”
Judge Sheridan said it was not a case of sexual grooming, but added: “You were the adult, she was the child and until you recognise that you will remain a danger to young girls.
“The emotional harm that has been caused to this child is enormous. As she matures she will have to come to realise that you are not the nice man she thought you were and hoped you might be.”
I think those are extremely appropriate remarks to make when imprisoning a paedophile.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
He said "consciously want". I interpret that to be equivalent to the higher-level decision making.
As far as I can tell you're in furious agreement about the underlying reality and just vehemently disagreeing about the words used to describe it.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
Yes? That's exactly what I understood @MartianNight to be saying about celibate paedophiles.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
That... seems like an incredibly normal sentencing statement?
Judges always talk about the severity of the conduct and why it was bad and what the legal and practical consequences will be when sentencing a defendant. It's their job, they are literally passing judgement.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
It's not that confusing a concept. Say you meet a hot woman, but want to be faithful to your wife. You're still attracted to the sexy lady, even though you are consciously deciding not to act on that attraction.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
I dunno, I reckon it's a pretty effective tactic.
"Take this deal."
"No."
Bang
"Congratulations on your promotion, new guy. Now, take this deal."
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
Well that was an uncomfortable watch.
I don't remember ever seeing an ad where the text and subtext were in such violent conflict. The text is all about them being anti-sex prudes while the subtext is they're sweaty rapey tentacle hentai obsessed freaks. Like we get them saying oral is sinful while making gross slurping noises. Is a woman supposed to watch that and think "Man I wish these dudes would try to get me to suck their dicks"? It makes me think "Send all the perverts and deviants to prison".
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
3mo ago
Yeah, the numbers are similar for Dominicans, which is the group I'm most personally familiar with. 2.5 million in the US, 11 million in the home country. Many of my Dominican relatives move back and forth between the two countries and hold dual citizenship. Most of their biggest national heroes play baseball for American teams.
I haven't directly posed the question, but I suspect most Dominicans would eagerly welcome annexation by the US. There's a ready made example of what a situation like that would look like in practice over in Puerto Rico, and Dominicans are extremely cynical about their own governance and institutions. The US dollar is seen as much more solid and reliable than their own peso, US politics is seen as much less corrupt, etc.
Alas, no. In Ralph Northam's words, "The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Basically the standard practice is you get care if the people who just tried to kill you decide to give you care.
EDIT: Apparently, there were 8 aborted babies born alive in Minnesota during Walz's tenure until he repealed the requirement to report these survived abortions.
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