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3d ago
I think that also came out in those ads and texts about "your friends can see whether you dated" or the like "Men, women won't want you unless you're a voter, and she can check" stuff. Our Democracy assumed that anyone engaged in the civic process for the sake of their peers would be on the side of Our Democracy. They could not understand that the social pressure to vote may actually involve the exercise of democracy against Our Democracy.
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4d ago
Realistically, what, if anything, is going to change from a culture war perspective because of this? Will the DNC conduct an election "autopsy" to determine what they got wrong here? They outspent and our raised Trump, a convicted felon with a negative approval rating, and still could not win. Will the Democratic party take a hard look in the mirror? Will the Republican party completely abandon moderates/the establish in favor of the winning populist rhetoric? Will nothing change at all?
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5d ago
The Chinese voter in Michigan: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/politics/michigan-chinese-citizen-charged-after-illegally-voting/index.html
Charged with the crime, but the vote still is getting counted.
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5d ago
Felons CAN vote - depending on their state. Different states have different rules.
Even if someone can no longer vote because they became a felon after breaking the law in a state that does not allow felons to vote, they still have the ability to challenge the law - a successful challenge would make them no longer felon, thus meeting redressability and other standing requirements.
It isn't actually that hard to get IDs, and I respect the states that allow things like university IDs to count. The main mechanism is cost - should first time IDs be covered by the government? While not prohibitively expensive, the amount of friction that can be lessened doesn't hurt. Also, DMVs suck.
Asking others to sign your picture leads to perhaps more racism, because people with accents who may very well be citizens will face more battles convincing someone to sign their picture. However, it's not that hard to get an ID. I have trouble believing the vast majority of Americans have never opened a bank account, bought alcohol, bought a cigarette, gotten on an airplane, picked up certain medications, or any of the myriad of things that require an ID. IDs are required in so much of our lives here.
It's unlikely we can have a federal voter ID law unless we tie some form of federal funding to the request (example: raising the legal drinking age by tying road funding to the request). The methods by which states conduct their elections is inherently the province of the states and not the purview of the federal government. It's why each state does things so differently from its neighbors, and why we have wacky things like hanging chads or what not. It's why we included poll taxes as an amendment to the Constitution. It's why certain attempts to standardize voting have failed or have been chipped away at in court.
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12d ago
You can't register day-of in PA; registration has closed for this election.
First time voters are required to show ID, but it doesn't have to be a government issued ID - school IDs count, for instance.
Our "early voting" is basically picking up a mail-in ballot at certain locations and then immediately sticking it in the mailbox there. I'm not sure if an ID is needed for that or not, though. Our early voting stuff is weird.
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13d ago
MSNBC played footage of Nazis from their 1930's rally in MSG while covering Trump's rally. Coverage of the event has conveniently ignored other events at MSG, including a bunch of DNCs.
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26d ago
Harris released an "Opportunity Agenda for Black Men." Highlights include:
"(1) Providing 1 million loans that are fully forgivable to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business.
(2) Championing education, training, and mentorship programs that help Black men get good-paying jobs in high-demand industries and lead their communities, including pathways to become teachers.
(3) Supporting a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets so Black men who invest in and own these assets are protected.
(4) Launching a National Health Equity Initiative focused on Black Men that addresses sickle cell disease, diabetes, mental health, prostate cancer, and other health challenges that disproportionately impact them.
(5) Legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in this new industry."
There feels like no kind of focus-grouping on what Black men actually would like to see. It also feels like it was released without any kind of cost-benefit analysis on how literally any other group would respond to these proposals, which seem blatantly terrible even if unfeasible. We already tried (1) with the PPP, which went kind of off the rails. None of this would survive strict scrutiny before the courts, and it's a bad look to the majority of voters. What was the perceived benefit in releasing this? How did this get approved?
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3mo ago
Couldn't Trump just pardon himself for all federal cases and render them effectively moot? He'd still be on the hook in Georgia (if they ever pull themselves together, cuz imo that is actually the strongest legal arg they have) and would have to finish out the fight in NY, but none of the federal cases would matter anymore.
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3mo ago
J.D. Vance, a young freshman senator from Ohio, is Trump’s VP. Vance wrote Hillbilly Elegy, which some Democrats read after 2016 to understand what happened (Obama even put it on his suggested reading list, lol).
At first blush, Vance brings nothing new to the ticket. Ohio seems safely red, and if anything, a graduate from THE Ohio State University isn’t going to play well in Michigan (I only sort of joke; football team rivalries might trump political team rivalries). Vance doesn’t have high name ID, and he’s significantly further right than Trump is while the party is supposedly trying to court suburban women. Vance also once compared Trump to Hitler. Sure, Vance is 39 and a Marine Veteran, which is Something, given geopolitical circumstances. But the man has even less experience governing than Obama did when Obama ran.
I wonder if Vance is a pick not to reach moderates or swing voters, but to calm down the populist elements of the base. Trump is upsetting party insiders by distancing himself from Project 2025 and by removing abortion from the platform (which anti-abortion groups quietly decided not to contest during the convention today). In an era where VP picks haven’t seemed to matter, quieting a core constituency is not nothing. The left seems almost thrilled about Vance as the VP pick, viewing it as a change to get back in the game after their past few news cycles.
But this is also the most geriatric American election, and Trump has to be even more brutally aware that his VP is a heartbeat away from the presidency after this weekend. There's a modest undertone in political discourse that this election is really VP vs. VP instead of about the Presidential candidates at all (especially since the shooting has quashed all conversation around Biden potentially dropping out). Is it possible that Trump truly believes that Vance is the future of the party? Trump likes to play kingmaker, after all. This choice defines where the party is trudging towards in the future – turning away from the center, doubling down on populism. The establishment is dead. Long live MAGA.
Choosing JD Vance also underscores the continued party re-alignment we’re watching unfold before us. Blue-collar Midwesterners have traditionally held up the Blue Wall, but now one is Trump’s running mate. Vance came from generational poverty as a straight white male and Has Made It; I’ve found few Democrats who can resonate in the same way, as both parties attempt to distance themselves from the “elites,” even as Vance holds a Yale law degree. The Democrats have unequally become the wealthy, stodgy cultural controllers, and the Republicans have become the edgy, gritty protesters against The Way Things Are. I'm only 30, so my understanding of where parties have historically stood is skewed, but this feels very different from previous messaging about wealth and power in America; please correct me if I am wrong.
Vance is also fascinating to me in general. He met his wife in law school, and had their wedding separately blessed in Hindu tradition. He later converted to Catholicism in 2019 (same time I did, actually); it’s unclear if his (very hot, but that’s not important) wife also did. He worked at the same law firm as the Obamas did (Sidley) (obviously years later).
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3mo ago
I wonder if Vance being a veteran will help Trump feel better, or at least provide optics.
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4mo ago
I mean, there are mechanisms to remove him, they're just not super likely to be invoked. The dem electors can hypothetically invoke the "in all good conscience" clause at the election and remove him. He could be impeached and convicted and thus cannot hold public office ever again. The cabinet invokes the 25th amendment and all hell breaks loose, although it's unclear if invoking the 25th would remove him from campaigning as well.
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4mo ago
Ohio moved the date back to Aug. 23; Dems still want the roll-call vote early because they don't really trust Ohio (which is fair but Ohio changing the date again would also create easy litigation re: promissory estoppel concepts that would likely still protect Aug. 23 as the date).
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4mo ago
There's a thing called neglect deaths that float around the conservative circles I interact with. There's also some rhetoric around the six states that do not have any term limits on abortion, mostly from some conservatives twisting "all stages of pregnancy" (the usual language used in the laws) into "up to and including birth."
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4mo ago
US Election Updates – Democratic Infighting + Project 2025
Some “top” House Democrats met yesterday to discuss the ongoing situation within the party. Besides an Asian Congressman being confused for another Asian Congressman, nothing really happened – House Democrats remain divided on how to proceed. Biden reaffirmed that he was running in a spicy letter to House Dems and told Dems to challenge him at the convention if they had a problem. Biden refused to acknowledge himself as “the elite,” using populist rhetoric to separate himself from the establishment that has defined his career. One Congressperson is pissed about leaks from the call, having wanted the opportunity to speak candidly amongst peers.
Some Senate Dems were supposed to meet today, but concerns over leaks led to Warner cancelling the tentative plans. Speculation grows they will instead discuss at the caucus meeting tomorrow. Schumer told Manchin to back off of publicly calling for Biden to drop out. Manchin, generally a maverick, obeyed, for reasons that are unclear.
Horseshoe theory is validated in real time. Biden’s misstating polls. Convicted felon Hunter Biden supposedly gatekeeps access to his father. Democrats are increasingly frustrated with the media and pundits are reluctantly acknowledging health issues that they previously called conspiracy theories. New conspiracy theories around Biden potentially having Parkinson’s have popped up. Democrats seek to redirect anger to Project 2025 to keep the heat off Their Guy, even as Trump disavows Project 2025 and instead seeks looser abortion restrictions in the Republican party platform - a direct contradiction of what Project 2025 seeks.
The hysteria over a think tank’s wish list astonishes me on a personal level; the involvement of previous members of Trump’s administration by no means indicates Trump signed onto the project or even knew about plans to direct his platform. Trump isn’t really one who likes to be controlled. But the rhetoric from the Twitteratti (X-eratti?) from “vote blue no matter who” to “vote against Project 2025 at all costs” – even though Project 2025 isn’t actually on the ballot.
I don’t see the Democratic party going as far as invoking the “in all good conscious” clause at the Convention to pick a different candidate, as that hits a level of party disunity I don't think we've seen from either side in recent memory. There’s funding issues that make Kamala the easiest option to continue campaign machinery, and Kamala isn’t very popular. Kicking both Kamala and Biden off the ticket makes it unlikely either one of them will direct their campaign funds back into the DNC. There’s also still enough DEI vibes floating around the Dems to maybe not want the optics of kicking a Black woman off the ticket. A brokered convention is messy, and it feels, in this moment, inevitable that Trump wins. Polls skew towards Democrats, after all, and Biden is still behind. Further intra-party chaos won’t help.
At the same time, Trump is only leading by an average of three points, and he beat Clinton when she was only ahead by four. There’s another debate on Sept. 10 (maybe), during which time Biden can possibly turn it around (so long as the debate is held between Biden's "good hours" of 10 am and 4 PM). Eight days after the second debate, Trump’s sentencing is set to proceed (pending evidentiary issues spawning from the SCOTUS immunity ruling); jail time will surely mess with the campaign, although polling around the impact of Trump's convictions is mixed.
Is there enough time before the election for Democrats to rally around Biden and wipe this mess from the minds of voters? Will Dems rally around Biden, or will the Lord Almighty Himself come down and remove Biden from the ballot? (as a side note - invoking God as the head of an increasingly a-religious party is an interesting choice). Is Project 2025 enough of a Bogeyman to overcome the very valid concern that Biden might not even be currently running the country? Is the average voter’s goldfish brain enough to move on from this mess in time for the election? While the conversation around replacing Biden has become a 24/7 media circus, extending over a week since the debate itself went down, how much is the average voter actually paying attention to any of this?
The most fascinating part of this, to me, are the Democratic attacks on a media that skews left. Turning against one’s historical allies is fascinating at a time when large Democratic donors are demanding Biden drop out. What a fun few months of culture war ahead.
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4mo ago
Why is the debate about dropping out of the campaign and not about stepping down as president? A man unfit to campaign is a man unfit to hold the nuclear codes. His cabinet should be the ones asking for a medical test in preparation for invoking the 25th Amendment.
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4mo ago
But it does also mean that the media circus has moved on from the debate. Why talk about Biden's declining health when the media is instead pushing declining democracy?
Volokh conspiracy generally has a good breakdown of stuff, but they're not a media outlet per se and they also take a day or two to write stuff up. Vox's deep dives became useless long ago. Nuance and readability does not get clicks.
It's our final SCOTUS day, and the surprisingly heated decision of Corner Post was released. There's a fair amount of juicy goodness in the decision, as well as the other decisions released today, but I specifically want to focus on the following lines in the dissent:
But Congress still has a chance to address this absurdity and forestall the coming chaos. It can opt to correct this Court’s mistake by clarifying that the statutes it enacts are designed to facilitate the functioning of agencies, not to hobble them. In particular, Congress can amend §2401(a), or enact a specific review provision for APA claims, to state explicitly what any such rule must mean if it is to operate as a limitations period in this context: Regulated entities have six years from the date of the agency action to bring a lawsuit seeking to have it changed or invalidated; after that, facial challenges must end. By doing this, Congress can make clear that lawsuits bringing facial claims against agencies are not personal attack vehicles for new entities created just for that purpose.
The Court, for its entire existence, has steadfastly refused to provide advisory opinions such as this comment. The Court does not weigh in on proposed statutes, let alone propose statutes itself, viewing it as a violation of both separation of powers and as outside the scope of the "case and controversy" requirement. Interpreting an amendment of a statute before the statute is even written goes strongly against the Court's norms and its powers. For all the discussion that overturning Chevron generated about moving power around between the branches, the Corner Post dissent is a shocking example of attempted judicial over-reach. Justices do not get to use the Court to urge Congress to enact legislation that meets the Justices' policy preferences.
However, an obscure APA case is a lot less interesting than the other decisions made today, and I doubt Corner Post's dissent will get much airtime with everything else going on. It's difficult to square with the liberal Justices' current discourse on other matters, but in a 6-3 I doubt that will matter much either.
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4mo ago
There are several functionalists arguments about the "value" of Chevron but no one is making any legal ones. The decision doesn't hold up constitutionally.
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4mo ago
What's disturbing me is that the conversation around this isn't "is Biden fit to lead" it's "does Biden look presidential enough?" Competence at the top of a ticket should pale in comparison to competence as President. The country should be considering the 25th Amendment, not just the ballot. The punditry seems more concerned with the appearance of the thing than the thing itself, and that thing is that Biden maybe shouldn't continue to serve in the current moment - far less the next four years.
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4mo ago
Shattered the screen of my Google pixel and tried to get a new one. Even with being logged into Gmail on my personal laptop, even with having a phone number associated, even with having backup codes, Google told me that because the "safest" option was clicking numbers on my broken pixel, I would be unable to log in to the new phone. I ended up returning the new phone and replacing the screen on the old one (which turned out to be more expensive than buying a new phone). There is no way to turn off the "numbers on a screen" function for verifying the Google account for me either.
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6mo ago
I'm at Penn Law.
I went to the protests tonight as a legal observer because there were reports that arrests were "imminent." While I was there, the encampment organizers designated a "red" group- those who WANTED to be arrested - from a "yellow" group - those WILLING to be arrested. The distinction concerns me; there are people actively SEEKING to get arrested.
We didn't currently have an active police presence, so it would take some time for a police force large enough to arrest anyone to show up. By the time enough police had gathered, those unwilling to get arrested could leave.
The admin has been clear they will only arrest non-Penn affiliates. The majority of protestors are not Penn affiliated - we are the meeting point for Temple and Drexel SJPs also, as our campus gets the most national attention because people sometimes realize we aren't Penn State. In addition, there are plenty of "community members" who are non-students heavily involved. I'd estimate approx. 15% of the total people were Penn affiliates, and maybe 50% were students at all.
Arrests have still not been made (there was a pro-Israel dude who walked through earlier with a pocket knife who got a citation but that's about it). I left after the chants shifted to "Al-Qassim make us proud, kill another soldier now" and "we don't want no two state, we want '48." I think the protestors are genuinely upset that the police have left them alone this entire time. I don't know if it's a resume line item checklist - "getting arrested for social justice ❤️💙" might play well for a political career? - or just people making reckless decisions. I'm scared, and tired, and finals start tomorrow.
Only 14 people in the encampment of 200 paused for the call to prayer at dusk. None of the prayer individuals were masked. The leaders of the protest, from what I could tell, were a Latino and a white woman (with purple hair, not that that really matters). The Latino led everyone in a chant of "we are all Palestinian." What happened to cultural appropriation?
There was a "protest against hate speech" or whatever earlier by the Pro-Israel crowd. The pro-Israel crowd were the first time I had seen American flags brought into this at all. They remembered where we were, what we actually had power over. None of them were masked, either.
Almost the entire pro-Palestine group was masked (I hesitate to call them pro-Palestine instead of pro-Hamas after the Al-Qassik chants). The three exceptions in the pro-Palestinian group were those who engaged in the call to prayer, the Latino leader, and the "red" group. If you aren't willing to show your face for a cause, to have your name associated with it, do you really believe in it at all?
I don't know anything anymore. One of the 19 year olds who stood next to me as the first tents were going up a few days ago, James, asked me what "encampment" meant. I thought he was joking, or at least asking what it meant in this specific context. No, actually. He, a sophomore at Penn, genuinely has never heard the word before. These are our best and brightest.
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10mo ago
A (potentially former?) staffer for allegedly Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) is making news for filming gay sex in the Senate hearing room. He also, allegedly, yelled "Free Palestine" at Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio).
I include the last sentence only to clarify the full context for a statement the staffer posted on his LinkedIn about the matter:
This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda. While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgement, I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace. Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters.
As for the accusations regarding Congressman Max Miller, I have never seen the congressman and had no opportunity or cause to yell or confront him.
I'm struggling with his statement because it seems like the "filmed sex tape at work in the Senate hearing room on Amy Koobuchar's desk" is more of the issue here than the staffer's sexuality itself, but the language used insinuates that he is using his sexuality as a defense for an act that straight people also probably could not have "gotten away" with.
The utter lack of understanding of consequences is also throwing me a little bit. Culture war discussions about sexuality dip into accusations of degeneracy and pleasure-seeking not associated with, necessarily, love that this video emulates. This video will of course be used to further those accusations onto "all gays" instead of the particularly privileged ones who work in the Senate.
There's about 16 million votes cast but not yet counted as of right now, with a reasonable expectation of 55% of those votes going to Harris. Trump will still handily win the popular vote, but turnout almost rivals 2020. I wouldn't be shocked to see Harris hit 75 million, which, even if it's not quite Biden numbers, is still better than how Trump did in 2020.
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