The Supreme Court issued a major ruling limiting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to curb emissions from power plants. This will have a major negative effect on curbing climate change.
Rolling Stone says the Court voted to let the planet burn.
The Trump majority strikes again.
West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency stemmed from the Clean Air Act, an Obama-era law that mandated certain emissions regulations. West Virginia was one of several fossil-fuel-rich states to sue the EPA over the regulations, leading the Supreme Court to rule that the Clean Power Plan (the part of the Clean Air Act that called for emissions regulations) must be suspended until the courts could upheld its legality. The Trump administration issued its own industry-friendly plan that may have even increased emissions, but it never went into effect, either. The courts struck the Affordable Clean Energy plan down just as the former president was leaving office….
It’s now up to the Biden administration to propose a replacement. It will be severely limited in its ability to do so thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday.
Elena Kagan authored the dissenting opinion. “Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change,” the liberal justice wrote. “The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decision maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”
On the same subject: a roundup of articles about this horrible decision by David Pell of Next Draft
June 30th – The Day’s Most Fascinating News — https://wp.me/pbRvtl-7dF:
This Supreme Court wants a more religious America and after the past week of decisions, a lot more of us are praying. The latest 6-3 decision that may send even ardent atheists into the arms of the lord is one that limits “how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.” Most of the headlines I’m seeing frame this in typically narrow political terms like WaPo’s, Justices limit EPA power to combat climate change, a blow to Biden’s agenda. Hah. If only the damage were limited to one president’s agenda. Rolling Stone with the more accurate headline: Supreme Court Rules 6-3 That the Planet Should Burn. Justice Elana Kagan with the dissent. “And let’s say the obvious: The stakes here are high. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints it- self—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decision- maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening. Respectfully, I dissent.”
+ “Credit where due: the Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling in West Virginia v. E.P.A. is the culmination of a five-decade effort to make sure that the federal government won’t threaten the business status quo. Lewis Powell’s famous memo, written in 1971, before he joined the Supreme Court—between the enactment of a strong Clean Air Act and a strong Clean Water Act, each with huge popular support—called on ‘businessmen’ to stand up to the tide of voices “from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians” calling for progressive change.” Bill McKibben in The New Yorker: The Supreme Court Tries to Overrule the Climate. “In essence, the ruling begins to strip away the power of agencies such as the E.P.A. to enforce policy: instead of allowing federal agencies to enforce, say, the Clean Air Act to clean the air, in this new dispensation, Congress would have to pass regulations that are much more explicit, as each new pollutant came to the fore … But, of course, the Court has also insured that ‘getting a clear statement from Congress’ to address our deepest problems is essentially impossible.”
+ NYT: The case is a crucial moment in the G.O.P. drive to tilt courts against climate action. (Um… congrats?)
+ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The Supreme Court has gone rogue. We are in a full-blown Constitutional crisis. Congress must act. And we must pressure Congress to act, while it still can.” In the meantime, Earth is down 6-3 in the ninth inning.
+ In another ruling issued today, Clarence Thomas suggested Covid vaccines are derived from the cells of ‘aborted children.’ (They’re not. But oh well…)
If anyone had the false impression that Roberts was the moderate conservative on the court, I offer this as Exhibit A. Let it burn is not the way to conserve anything.
The only regard in which Roberts is a “moderate”:
He is moderately adept at hiding the extreme, religious ideology behind his “legal” opinions and at hiding his dishonesty and contempt for the Constitution and the Court he heads (on paper, only)
Agreed
“The solution to pollution(and everything else) is flagration*”
Burn , baby burn!
The Earth and Constitution!
Let the Liberals learn
“Flagration is solution”
*Twist to the oft cited claim of “Conservatives” (sick) that “The solution to pollution is dilution”.
21st century American Conservatives believe that “burning it down to the ground” is the solution to everything.
American Conservatism
Burn it to the ground!
Drown it like a witch!
Answers we have found
To every single hitch
American Conservatism
“She turned me into a Newt”
…and I never got better, happily.
The Feeling Is Mutual …
haaa!!!
The only thing that is conserved in the process is energy and only because Conservatives must abide by physical laws, even if they don’t abide by legal ones.
Many, many years ago, I told myself, well, Ronald Reagan is an insane extremist ex-McCarthyite who wanted to sell off California’s redwoods and claims that Social Security is a Communist plot. No one in his or her right mind would vote for this guy.
Flash forward a few years. I told myself, well, Shrub has run three businesses into bankruptcy, weaseled his way out of military service, went AWOL from even that limited service, was a drunk and druggie, and is a profoundly ignorant Bible thumper. Surely no one in his or her right mind would vote for this guy.
Flash forward again. I said to myself. OK. Everyone knows this guy. He is a playboy sexist pig, a money launderer for Russian mafiosi, profoundly and overtly racist, breathtakingly ignorant, a malignant pathological narcissist Not a chance on Earth he’s going to become president.
And now, here we are in 2022. A former president coordinated an attempted insurrection against the United States government involving falsified electors and an armed mob storming the Capitol, in collusion with 140 U.S. Congresspeople and Senators, and the traitorous insurrectionist is walking around free and even talking about running for president again. And then there was this millionaire pedophile blackmailer who filmed and photographed a long, long, long, long list of famous politicians and businesspeople and academics in mansions outfitted with surveillance equipment and somehow, miraculously, all those photos and videos have disappeared, and the blackmailer committed “suicide,” and his accomplice is headed off to a spalike “prison” after having been convicted in a trial in which all the testimony was vetted to ensure that not a single famous name was compromised. A Supreme Court “justice’s” wife can participate in the coup attempt, that justice can refuse to recuse himself from related cases, and nothing happens to him.
But if you dare to walk with skittles while black, you can be shot with impunity. Or if you are a black teen who dares to try to sell bottles of water at an intersection, you will be arrested. Or if you are a black man who attempts to sell single cigarettes, you will be murdered for this by the “law.”
When i was 16, I looked around me and said, OK, things are bad, but there’s the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Movement and the Antiwar Movement and the Gay Rights Movement, and it’s just a matter of time until . . . .
I expected a new and better world. Not, not this freaking backward nightmare.
The whole freaking system is corrupt, top to bottom. It just hasn’t yet reached its full fascist flowering. But never fear, Bannon and Miller and their ilk are on the job. We’ll get there.
And Miller et al. call their organization the America First Legal. The America First Committee (1940-41) was an organization of anti-Semites that tried to keep the U.S. from going to war against Hitler.
Why do Republicans get worse and worse? Because they can get worse and worse and the base will still vote for them.
Meanwhile, the Democrat candidates get better and better (still far from perfect) and the base fights among itself and the so-called liberal media (and sometimes a portion of the base) help the Republicans by amplifying right wing propaganda specifically designed to suppress the vote. In that propaganda, it is always the Democrat who is demonized and the Republican candidate who is normalized. No Democrat is good enough.
I was too young to be cognizant of how Jimmy Carter was being characterized, but the idea that Carter was corrupt, horrible and destroying all good progressive things with his neoliberal pro-corporate agenda certainly was internalized by me when I refused to vote for him.
Perhaps Mondale never had a chance but Mike Dukakis certainly did. He had a huge lead until so-called “liberal pundits” in every newspaper and nightly news show began repeating right wing talking points about him. The media’s complicity in legitimizing right wing talking points was so over the top (read “On Bended Knee”) and the destruction of Dukakis so horrific that the media finally did a reckoning – Bill Clinton benefited from that – and I thought things had changed. They hadn’t. The media soon went back to being tools of the far right and destroyed both Gore and Kerry, while the guy who “has run three businesses into bankruptcy, weaseled his way out of military service, went AWOL from even that limited service, was a drunk and druggie, and is a profoundly ignorant Bible thumper” was portrayed positively as a legitimate candidate. With an even worse repeat in 2016.
In short, it doesn’t matter how low the Republicans go — the Republicans will propagandize together about what a great candidate they are. It doesn’t matter which of many perfectly acceptable but flawed candidates the Dems choose — there will be some faction pushing the narrative that the candidate isn’t worth voting for, and amplifying the right wing propaganda that demonizing them.
NYC public school parent
First of all except for rare exception the media is not liberal.
The “Liberal Washington Post ” who had 20 something negative articles about Sanders in one day.
And don’t blame progressives they voted with Biden. They did not kill BBB, they compromised. They did not wave the flag and criticize the withdrawal from Afghanistan. They did not blame moderates for losing their seats in 2020 . Moderates blamed progressives for their own failures .
Joel,
“They did not blame moderates for losing their seats in 2020.” lolol
You have to be kidding. The progressives who are Democrat legislators did not blame them. The progressives who are ready to repeat 2016 and help a right wing Republican win by repeating right wing talking points are constantly scapegoating “evil Dems”.
But Joel, dontcha know that Bernie Sanders was absolutely guaranteed to beat Trump. 100%. Because the billionaires would have DEFINITELY not gone after Bernie with character attacks. What people don’t even realize is that the criticism Bernie got from the Dems in the primary was not even close to the trashing he would have received as the candidate. Russ Feingold got a little bit of that trashing and lost even by a greater amount than “she who cannot be named” did to a far right Republican shill. But sure, those folks would have certainly voted for a “socialist”.
NYC public school parent
Where did I say anything about Bernie Sanders winning . I pointed out that WaPo the supposedly “Liberal ” 2nd paper of record . Was merciless in their attacks on him. And by the way Bernie is not even close to a Socialist . Regardless of what he called himself . I have not seen him ever advocate the Government owning the means of production.
And you better go back to the days after the election to see who attacked who in the Party. The hand wringing and the media spin started the night of the election. The Party we were told went too far left and the American people rejected it. The losing Democrats blaming progressives for their losses . Exactly what proposal that passed in the Democratic congress of 2019 was too far left. In fact what proposal from the Progressives was too far left. AOC merely pointed out in response that all the losers were moderates perhaps they should do a little self reflection about their campaigns.
And yes the Billionaires will pile on to slam any progressives. We saw that in the non stop assault on M4all in the Democratic Primaries . All of a sudden the Corporate Press became boosters of Unions.
“What about those great Union Health Plans ”
If you can keep them with Union density dropping !!!!!!!!!
“And by the way Bernie is not even close to a Socialist”
Would you like him more or less if he were a Socialist?
That’s a more complex question that it might at first seem to be, Flerp. An ESOP is Socialist. It’s a worker ownership plan. No one is going to get terribly freaked out about it. LOL.
Goddamned Godless Commie Pinko-punko Socialists
Do folks realize that ALL Dems are “socialists” if the powerful far right propaganda machine decides that putting the label of “socialist” on them will motivate their voters to vote against them?
Just like all Dems were “corrupt, untrustworthy corporate lackeys” when that right wing propaganda machine got Wisconsin voters to reject Russ Feingold and vote for Ron Johnson. Or maybe they thought Russ was just another “commie socialist”. At any rate, the completely demonizing smears are never true, and it’s time to call them all out as lies instead of parsing whether one Dem really is a completely radical socialist or not, or just a commie, and if another Dem is a corrupt far right tool of privatizers or just a very corrupt corporate hack. It is exactly what the far right wants.
There really is not that much difference between Bernie and AOC and Elizabeth Warren and even Pete Buttigeig and Pelosi. They all want to move this country in a progressive direction. But there is a Grand Canyon of difference between Pelosi and Susan Collins. Really. Pelosi is alot more similar to AOC than Collins. But we seem to only focus on the smaller differences between Dems instead of the many ways in which they are the same. I love AOC because she never, ever forgets that. And the media tries very hard to get her to help them do the far right’s bidding, but she is way too smart to fall for it.
I wish some her elders were as wise.
FLERP!
I like Bernie just the way he is . I have no problem with the Government owning the means of production. But I hear no one proposing that.
Bob Shepherd
Actually it is not. That would be Communism according to my SWP friends . (I didn’t think SWP was still around) . Socialism is an intermediate step on the way to Communism . But in America so is Medicare .
George Washington University, a private school in D.C. that has never had a woman president despite a current enrollment ratio of 36% male and 64% women, a school that only admitted Black students after the Brown v. Board of Education decision (1954) –
“GWU to Keep Clarence Thomas on Payroll after Roe Backlash.”
Politico 6-28-2022
I agree, Bob. I believed that the arc of history moves toward justice but now it is going in reverse.
Have you ever wondered how many abortions TFG has paid for?
I keep wishing that one, just one, of those women would come forward.
Right now the arc of history is moving toward Justass
Or wondered about members of the Supreme Court majority, for that matter.
All too often “Holier than thou” translates to “Guiltier than sin”
The Arc of History
History bends
With Justass trends
Pres offends
And law defends
That, my friends
Is how it ends
The traditional idea behind conservatism is that life on earth is intended to exist under authoritarian, religious rule because heaven only exist in the afterlife. It doesn’t matter if the world burns. Suffering in life is just. Only avoid burning after you die.
21st Century American Conservatism means murdering a person on the street in Manhattan in broad daylight with witnesses all around and denying that you had any involvement, even though you are still holding the smoking 🔫
NYC public school parent
First of all except for rare exception the media is not liberal.
The “Liberal Washington Post ” who had 20 something negative articles about Sanders in one day.
And don’t blame progressives they voted with Biden. They did not kill BBB, they compromised. They did not wave the flag and criticize the withdrawal from Afghanistan. They did not blame moderates for losing their seats in 2020 . Moderates blamed progressives for their own failures .
I suggest you read posts by progressive who still believe they “did the right thing” by saying that the Supreme Court doesn’t matter if Bernie isn’t the Dem nominee. Maybe they were deluded then because it didn’t occur to them that filling an open seat when the SC was divided 4-4 mattered. But not to recognize their mistake now borders on Trumpism. Never admit your mistakes. You are always, always right.
NYC public school parent
You are talking 2016 and non office holders . I am talking 2020 and elected officials. Even in 2016 the vast majority of Sanders supporters still voted for Clinton .
Joel,
I am not referring to Sanders supporters who voted for “she who must not be named”. I am one of them! All of us cared about the Supreme Court. Some of us may be upset that RBG didn’t step down earlier, but we all understand that the bigger issue was always whether or not a Democrat or a Republican filled an open seat when the Court was tied 4-4. And the Court would have been tied 4-4 even if RBG had resigned in 2013. Even if RBG had resigned and been replaced, the 2016 election would STILL be a 4-4 tie with an open seat to be filled by whoever won the election.
So obviously I am referring to the people – whether they supported Sanders or not — who did not vote for the Democrat in Nov. 2016. They obviously did NOT care if the Supreme Court stayed right wing or if the open seat in a 4-4 tie was filled by Justice who allowed RBG to lead a majority.
I don’t understand why anyone is trying to complicate that reality by bringing up RBG.
If the Supreme Court was tied 4-4, but RBG was replaced by some other liberal justice, does that mean the Supreme Court doesn’t matter anymore?
It makes no sense. If there are 4 liberal justices and 4 right wing justices, it doesn’t matter if one of those 4 liberal justices is RBG or someone young. The Supreme Court is STILL tied 4-4 with an open seat. And voters either cared enough about the Supreme Court to make sure that open seat was filled by a Democrat so that the Supreme Court had a 5-4 liberal majority, or they believed that it was far more important to defeat the Democrat even if that gave the far right a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court.
The seat was open. The Court was tied 4-4. If RBG had retired, the court would STILL be tied 4-4.
Everyone should own their vote. Not try to blame RBG, when RBG’s early resignation would not have have changed the 4-4 tie with an open seat in 2016.
I find that the most absurd thing. If RBG had lived until February 2021 and this Supreme Court decision to let the planet burn was only 5-4, does that make everyone happy that the planet is going to burn with a 5-4 decision instead of a 6-3 decision?
If RBG had resigned and been replaced in 2014, and this Supreme Court decision to let the planet burn was only 5-4, does that make everyone happy that the planet is going to burn with a 5-4 decision instead of a 6-3 decision?
I guess for the people who said the Supreme Court wasn’t important in 2016, it does make the difference. I would have rather seen a 5-4 or 6-3 decision AGAINST letting the planet burn. Others are content they sent a message and defeated the Dem in 2016 but they cite that they only intended this to be a 5-4 decision to let the planet burn and it’s RBG’s fault that it’s 6-3 to let the planet burn instead of 5-4 to let the planet burn.
But we all had a chance to have a Supreme Court that didn’t let the planet burn in 2016, and that chance to have a Supreme Court that didn’t let the planet burn was not affected by whether or not RBG or her replacement was one of the 4 justices with our votes deciding the empty seats.
Like you point out, Joel, many of us Sanders supporters knew the Supreme Court was of vital importance, especially when there was an open seat and the Court was tied 4-4. We voted for the Democrat in the general election because having a Dem fill that open seat was important to us.
The ones who didn’t want a Dem filling that open seat voted accordingly. They got what they wanted.
“Supreme Court rules that the planet should burn. It’s now up to the Biden administration to propose a replacement Earth.
Seriously, Biden should continue to enforce EPA rulings and just watch Roberts and the others blow a head gasket.
What can they do? Not a damned thing.
Does it really need to be said that we should not let 6 ignorant, ideological clowns decide the fate of billions of humans and untold billions of other creatures on the only planet we have?
I bet steam would start coming out of Thomas’ ears.
Agreed
About the steam?
Joe Manchin is happy as a clam about the ruling because his family owns a coal mine and the ruling means coal burning — and hence coal mining — will continue that much longer.
Biden Administration issues guideline to combat global warming by adding an additional ice tray to your freezer. “Invaluable on those 120+ days,” says climate change amelioration director H. J. Simpson.
If we just switch the direction of all the air conditioners in the world so they cool the outside and heat the inside and move our offices and beds outside, we could probably fix global warming in a day.
And, most importantly, we should not forget to switch the direction of the air conditioners used for the Supreme Court Chambers, since those Boys (and Honorary Boy) obviously like it hot.
The Band o’ Bozos
Good idea! Where are the checks and balances in a super majority court?
More Earth’s, please!
Another Earth is what we need
To satisfy our endless greed
To double gas and double oil
And double minerals in the soil
But when we’ve used up both of those
Another Earth’s what I propose
There Was An Earth Climate Curriculum BEFORE The EPA!
The Cleveland, OH Cuyahoga River Was On Fire Repeatedly.
Raw Sewage Got Dumped In the Potomac River.
Baltimore Harbor was Full Of Tossed Car Tires.
Arsenic Smokestacks Blew Over Neighborhoods.
Garbage Dumps Were Allowed On Hilton Head SC Beach.
Then, a new project called Documerica sent photographers out to capture the mess and the cleanup.
Documerica Snapshots of Crisis and Cure in the 1970’s/The National Archives
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/documerica.html
https://www.documerica.org/
https://www.archives.gov/research/environment/documerica-topics
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5vbw7/heres-what-america-looked-like-before-the-epa
This Is What America Looked Like Before the EPA
In 1971, the fledgling agency sent photographers across the country to document environmental devastation. Amazing Photos!
by MATTHEW GAULT/https://medium.com/defiant/this-is-what-america-looked-like-before-the-epa-94cb4ab4bbe0
In the early days of the Agency, the EPA hired a team of photojournalists to travel the country and document its ongoing environmental decline. The project lasted six years and employed 100 photojournalists.
The end result is 80,000 images the EPA called Documerica. Over the past few years, the National Archives has uploaded photos from the project on Flickr and its own website.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5vbw7/heres-what-america-looked-like-before-the-epa
!!!!!!!
WOW
Agree! Extraordinary and sad.
A bit off the subject, but as a young kid I used to read books set in London and there would be incidents of people getting lost in the London Fog — walking home in daylight and suddenly not being able to see in front of them anymore. We had occasional fog in our midwestern town, but I always thought that was so cool and scary that London’s fog could be that dense.
It wasn’t until many years later, while visiting London, that I asked someone about the fog, and I had it explained to me that London didn’t get that fog anymore because it was POLLUTION and they passed laws and cleaned it up. How embarrassing for me that I had no idea. I thought it was just some cool thing that London had because of the weather there.
Let’s hope our country doesn’t return to those days.
A remarkable phenomena that has been observed in the past number of years is how we are almost seeing evolution happen in real time due to man-made environmental pressures. One the most interesting books I’ve read in the past decades is The Death and Live of the Great Lakes. In it the author describes all the ways the Great Lakes have been manipulated in past decades with the introduction of non-native species either deliberately, for tourism, or inadvertently, like when ships drop ballast of water from ecosystems in differing parts of the world. One type of fish’s natural food resources was wiped out and they evolved over a short time to subsist on broken shells and debris on the lake floor. The Court just manacled every agency that studies this and trying to find solutions.
That 6 to 3 ruling to speed up the end of the global environment our species needs to survive proved something else: those six theocratic-fascist justices do not have any critical thinking, problem solving, or rational thinking skills. I wonder if they all attended private schools growing up.
And I argue that that the church-state majority on the Supreme Court isn’t Trump’s fault.
Mitch McConnell (M&M) is the guilty party that brought that about. Trump was just a dangerously dumb tool M&M used along the way. The traitor is so into himself that he doesn’t pay attention to things like appointing Supreme Court justices to the bench. When a vacancy appeared, it was M&M and other GOP leaders that handed the hit list to the traitor. The Traitor didn’t know who they were, what they represented. He didn’t care.
Since he couldn’t get Ivanka, Kushner, Jr. and Erik (in that order) appointed to the Supreme Court, any list would do.
“Just give me some names,” he’d shout at M&M and the other GOP leaders as he threw his bucket of ketchup soaked Nuggets at the wall.
Then when the traitor realized he was still hungry after they handed him their list, he probably ate it. Then later spit the chewed wad in a toilet and flushed it away before he started his daily does of Tweeting lies, insults and attacking anyone that wouldn’t kowtow to him.
Elections have consequences.
A person murders both his parents and complains about being an orphan. That’s what I think of if I see the same folks who kept pushing the false narratives that voting for the dem in 2016 didn’t matter who are now upset at these Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court was split 4-4 and the open seat would either change the right wing court into a more progressive court that strengthens democracy, or keeps the right wing court intact (with future openings only strengthening the right wing’s control).
And this is all the consequence of choices that some folks made in 2016. Either not to vote for the Dem or not to vote at all. Choices to amplify and spread the propaganda that there is no difference.
Most of us here could easily see this consequence in 2016. The ones that put their head in the sand and professed not to care who filled an open Supreme Court seat should have the integrity to admit they were wrong before complaining about the situation.
Today is a great day in America. The Supreme Court, with its new, liberal majority just put out a series of rulings protecting: human rights, labor rights, environmental rights, antitrust, secular public education, women, and LGBT. The president spent the last five and a half years wrestling with Congress to regulate big business and the outsized political influence of wealthy corporations and billionaires, fighting for universal health care, and appointing fair minded judges. President Sanders is a great president. It’s a good thing the Democratic Party eliminated superdelegates and fully embraced its most popular candidate years ago instead of running the only other candidate in the country with less popular support than that widely reviled nut job Donald Trump, who was quite happy to lose the election he later bragged he never intended to win in the first place. Primary elections have consequences. Microphone drop.
Wow, I wanted Ted Kennedy to win, too, but that didn’t excuse my demonizing Jimmy Carter and shouting out the right wing talking points about how Carter was so bad it didn’t matter if Reagan won.
You make me sad to support tyeahers if that is yoiur answer. There is no proof whatsoever that Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have gone down to an even bigger defeat. At least I wasn’t repeating nonsense about how Ted Kennedy would 100% have won a great victory in 1980 and beaten that laughable actor, and we would have had the universal health insurance that the horrible and corrupt Jimmy Carter prevented.
You seem to be part of a deluded elite who is so removed from reality that you believe it is certain that a man who couldn’t even win the majority of votes from Democrats was going to convince far more conservative folks that he wasn’t a commie socialist.
I grew up in the midwest that went for Trump and they are STILL talking about “socialism” and the evils of AOC. Seriously, do you have any idea how many people are opposed to Medicare for All? I voted for Bernie Sanders in both primaries, but in 2016 I knew how important it was for the progressive movement to have a Democrat choose a new Justice when there was an open seat. You seem to believe Sanders would have not been smeared until he was unrecognizable, just like “she who must not be named” was.
The DNC had those primary rules in place when “she who may not be named” lost the primary to Obama. She didn’t throw a temper tantrum, she got to work to make sure that a Republican didn’t appoint Supreme Court Justices. She won the primary based on the same rules that she had lost the primary earlier. She got more votes. She got a lot more African American votes in southern states that white people don’t believe matters. So did Biden. That’s why both of them won. By the same rules in which they had previously lost. That’s called democracy.
If your point is that if Bernie couldn’t fill an open Supreme Court seat, then it didn’t matter to you who did, then I am happy fopr you that you aren’t bothered by this outcome. If you cared about the Supreme Court, you had a chance of a lifetime to choose who would fill the OPEN seat on Supreme Court divided 4-4. If you didn’t care, just own it. Or admit you were wrong. I really don’t care. And I would say the same to any moderate who refused to vote for Bernie had he won. You made a choice – just own it or admit you were wrong.
Can you imagine if I kept saying that Ted Kennedy would have beaten Reagan years after I realized how much Reagan’s empowerment set progressives back decades?
I made a mistake. If you thought the Supreme Court didn’t matter, then so did you.
The Supreme Court matters. We told you so in 2016 and you either believed us or you didn’t.
NAFTA. War in Iraq.
And I’m not defending any votes, but saying why I think voters voted the way they did.
Russ Feingold was one of the few Senators that voted against going to war in Iraq. Feingold voted against NAFTA. Feingold was a progressive. Feingold received even fewer votes in Wisconsin than “she who must not be named” in 2016 and he lost to the right wing Ron Johnson who had defeated Feingold in 2010 and had spent the past 6 years voting for every right wing anti-worker policy he could.
No one knows for sure, but the probability of someone who voted for Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold voting for Bernie? Look at the facts. Anti-war in Iraq, anti-NAFTA Russ Feingold got fewer votes in Wisconsin than “she who may not be named” when running against a known right wing corporate shill like Ron Johnson who was an advocate of free trade agreements like NAFTA.
If Wisconsin voters wanted a progressive who voted against NAFTA and against the Iraq War, they would have voted for Feingold over right wing corporate shill Ron Johnson. We do know that for a fact. Why not just accept that progressive candidates have just as hard a time as less progressive candidates when they are smeared by a right wing attack machine? Feingold’s loss is why I doubt those who insist it is a certainty that Bernie would have won. Maybe he would have, but the certainty is not warranted. It is self-serving.
There was an OPEN Supreme Court seat in November 2016 when voters could have voted for a Democrat to fill it and make RBG the leader of a 5 person majority.
Anyone who felt that was important voted for the Democrat. It’s fine that other voters decided that the outcome we have was not a problem for them and felt that it didn’t matter whether a Republican kept the Supreme Court right wing. That is their right. It’s just hypocritical to pretend they care about the Supreme Court when they had a chance to change it and refused to vote for a Democrat because it didn’t really matter to them whether the Dem or Republican won and filled that open seat. Why are they complaining now if they still believe they did the right thing in 2016 because the Supreme Court doesn’t matter?
Beautifully said, LCT!
Bob Shepherd,
The very sad thing is that SAME “beautiful day” would have happened if the Democrat had won in 2016. Because “she who may not be named” was always a progressive at heart, but more importantly, she know how to roll up her sleeves and get things done. Families are still benefiting from Child Health Plus – health care for kids.
I am so tired of folks who believe there is only a single path toward a good future and if they can’t have that exact path they don’t care of this country burns. That’s what those who said the Supreme Court didn’t matter when there was an open seat in 2016 – they didn’t care if the country burned if the one path they wanted wasn’t taken. So ironic because the path of making the Supreme Court a liberal court led by RBG would have been a POSITIVE path to follow.
And what did they get? Bernie – whom I voted for in the primary – couldn’t even muster enough votes in 2020 to win the primary. AFTER the DNC changed the rules so that the super delegates didn’t even count unless no candidate won enough votes in the first ballot. We got this Supreme Court making decisions that are going to empower the right wing for decades. It doesn’t matter if AOC wins the presidency if she has a right wing Supreme Court, House and Senate to hamper her and 30 or more states are controlled by the far right.
And good luck with next year’s Supreme Court, when they overthrow precedent to allow state legislatures to choose the president. Talk about setting the progressive movement back a century.
But yes, let’s imagine a “beautiful day” that would have happened if ANY Democrat had won in 2016, with RBG leading her 5 person majority on the Supreme Court.
There was never only one path to that beautiful day. I learned that the hard way when I thought preventing Jimmy Carter from having a 2nd term – even if it meant having 8 years of Reagan – was the way to a progressive future. The only difference is that I didn’t justify my decision years later by telling everyone about a “beautiful day” that would have come about ONLY if Ted Kennedy had won the primary and not the evil Jimmy Carter. What if I still was blaming Jimmy Carter for all the harm Reagan caused because it made me feel better about my vote and rantings against Carter because my extreme focus was defeating Carter, not defeating Reagan?
The reason we don’t have that beautiful day is the REPUBLICANS, not Jimmy Carter or she who can not be named. Empowering Republicans prevents that beautiful day.
You asked why the ever more awful Republicans keep winning. It is because their voters know the path to their own beautiful day is being blocked by Dems. So they will do anything to keep Dems from power.
And they are joined by too many on our side determined to keep the Dems who aren’t exactly what they want from power, too.
This was by far the most significant of the all the venal decisions handed down this week. Roberts new because he saved it for last so that all the other outrage could suck the attention away. This decision shifts a significant number of issues from the realm of constitutional law to contract law. Instead of principles embedded in a constitution and the subsequent history that informs opinions, many, if not all, of those will now be transactional and only look to ideological theory for guidance. (Because the Dobbs decision basically gave the Court a “Get out of precedent free” card.)
This decision potentially cripples every function of the federal government that any party can challenge in Court. What they are in essence saying is that legislators must explicitly anticipate all contingencies a regulatory agency may face. It also would require them to have more expertise in the regulatory function than the functions they oversee.
The reason this government will fail, even if Dems hold on to something, is because the underpinnings for constitutional government, which took 233 to create, have essentially been eviscerated in 10 days. The rickety structure of the American experiment is lean more than any tower in Pisa ever did. Steve Bannon as won. American government would have to be rebuilt over the next decade to repair the damage that will come of this.
And one more thing: many complex cancers and respiratory diseases are caused by an unknown interaction between a person’s inherited and acquired genetics and exposure to environmental toxins, age and other factors. Regardless of the politics, here’s what will happen. Children in West Virginia, whose parents are cheering on the death of the “administrative state,” will have a higher incidence of disease and disap=bility when they become older. Their life spans will be shorter than they would otherwise have had if the EPA were allowed to do its legislatively-mandated job. Just as with September 11, the long-term death toll due to disease and disability that will be traced back to this decision in a couple of decades will be greater than anyone can imagine today.
Oh, and today’s decision will lead to the politicization of all taxing and spending. So if your child gets some rare disease in the future, you’d better hope a powerful person in DC or a big time celebrity has the same disease. Because that one will move to the top of the research line, regardless of how much opportunity exists in other areas.
Mission close to accomplished:
Bannon and Miller. These are the “brains” of the outfit today. Bannon laid out all the various election fraud schemes on his War Room podcast very early on, for example.
In a just world, those two would face serious jail time.
agreed
The Putin puppet has destroyed the Court. Environmental conservationism was once a touchstone of the now-defunct conservative Republican. Teddy Roosevelt’s row with Taft over Taft’s firing of “radical” conservationist Gifford Pinchot led to the split of the GOP and a four-way presidential contest in 1912. Tricky Dick Nixon emboldened federal environmental oversight in the wake of the Great Society. The Rough Rider started the National Parks System. Nixon started the EPA. Today’s Trump-stained Russia RepubliQans start insurrections.
The Red 🔥 State Answer to Climate Change
Thoughts And Prayers 🙏 (TAPs)
Silent Spring
Thoughts and prayers
And guns and snares
And nets and traps
Precede collapse
TAPs
Day is done
Shot a gun
Burnt the earth
For what it’s worth
TAPs (2)
Earth is done
On the run
From the coal
From the gas
All is oil
Furnace blast
God is nigh
What a guy
Oils well that ends well said Orwell
Oil wells that ends world, said Orwell
TAPs. Exactly.
In case anyone still wonders why the Supreme Court seems to have lost their collective mind, it’s because they have:
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a dissenting opinion Thursday suggested that Covid-19 vaccines were developed using the cells of “aborted children.”
Is it too cruel to say that certain justices have so much sympathy for aborted children because they are aborted children?
I think the real problem is that these people have been aborted as adults and hence are carrying gigantic chips on their shoulders and are making everyone else pay.
Seriously, what kind of person puts their ego and ideology ahead of the health and well being of billions of people and other creatures?
These people are not conservative by any stretch of the imagination . Nor are they religious.
If there is a Hell, they already have one foot in.
The six-person majority on the Supreme Court is not conservative. It is radical. Conservatives care about stability and continuity.
These people are extremists, intent on overturning every precedent they can.
I know enough about Christianity to know folks like Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Coby Barret are not really Christian.
They are fundamentally selfish, completely caught up in themselves, believing that they and they alone should be deciding everything for everyone else (from what women can and can not do with their own bodies to what all humanity can do to protect the Earth.)
Nothing is more sickening than a fake religious person and these folks are as fake as you can get.
The basic problem is that we have been using duct tape to make up for a dysfunctional legislature. If the legislature remains dysfunctional there is little hope for the future. The court’s decision in this case will not move the needle very much.
Are there any modern precedents for a federal or state legislature in the U.S. becoming less dysfunctional rather than more dysfunctional?
Twice with Congress, the first time after the McCarthy era, the second in the immediate aftermath of Watergate. Unfortunately, Iran-Contra could be characterized as the time when the reactionary seed germinated. Most state legislatures have basically become franchises of ALEC and those that haven’t have been permanently crippled by it.
We do indeed have a dysfunctional legislature. It’s bad. The country has become ungovernable and thus ungoverned.
Just when I think this Supreme Court can’t do anything worse, they come up with a new public good to undermine. We have to expand the court before the present one destroys any advances we have made in the past 200 years. I just hope we survive to see history vilify them.
& I must ask again, why was clarence thomas hospitalized? Did he have a stroke, & did it affect his mental capabilities? Or–was he hospitalized for reasons other than physical?
I believe that U.S. citizens have the right to request that he undergo a complete medical evaluation. It just seems to me that everything he’s just done, every ruling he’s calling for & is pushing is just insane, serving no good to Americans whatever, only harming everyone. We know the Kavenaugh & Gorsuch are liars who never should have been confirmed & were aware of what havoc they would wreak, as well as Amy C-B (& what can one say about Roberts but baaaa), but clarence seems to have gone absolutely ballistic, & is running w/the ball, the others happily following.
&–case in point–“In another ruling today, justice clarence thomas suggested ‘Covid vaccines are derived from ‘the cells of aborted children.’ LOST. HIS. MIND.
I rest MY case.
I have a couple yes/no questions for Thomas: are you vaccinated for COVID19?
Is your wife?
My guess is that the answer is yes to both.
And that would make Thomas a hypodermicrit.
The Hypodermicrit
Hypodermicrit, chides vaccines
“Aborted children’s cells!” be screams
After getting vaccinated
With the vax he has berated
“Aborted children’s cells!” he screams
Damned Automisspell
Missing here, today, D77 telling us that Biden is just as bad as Trump or worse. Wonder why.
Missing here, D77 entirely scapegoating RBG (and not Trump or the far right Republicans) for all of this. Don’t blame Clarence Thomas or Roberts or Gorsuch et al. And definitely don’t blame Trump. This is all the fault of RBG because she did not step down sooner (despite that not making any difference in all these 6-3 decisions). That’s what D77 posted when there was a reprehensible 6-3 decision last week.
There were some excellent dissents today, but the problem is that none of the 3 dissenting justices have the gravitas of RBG. Her presence on the court from 2014-2020 was important, even if she wasn’t in the majority. And had the Democrat won in 2016, this would have been a liberal court for the last 6 years, issuing the opinions that would have made future progressive legislation likely. Instead, what’s likely is the end of democracy itself.
But hey, some people said the Supreme Court didn’t matter to them. I wonder if it matters now.
Wait just a minute.
DIANE said–& has said—that RBG should have stepped down, because she WAS 89, had had numerous bouts with cancer & what did she think, that she was going to live forever?
I agree with Diane’s opinion. She served her time honorably & did a remarkable job. But, had she stepped down at the right time, this all would have had a different outcome.
No, this would be the SAME outcome. It was a 6-3 decision.
Do you know what would have caused a different outcome? Electing a Democrat president in 2016. Then it would have been a 5-4 liberal majority.
Diane Ravitch knew the Supreme Court was important, which is why Diane Ravitch has every right to say that she wishes RBG had stepped down in 2013 or 2014. Diane Ravitch knew the Supreme Court was important, which is why she voted for the Democrat in 2016 when there was an open seat and urged others to do so, too. This was the outcome that Diane Ravitch did not want, which is why she voted for the Democrat in 2016.
But certain other folks decided that it was better to prevent an “evil baby-bombing Democrat” from winning, and they were not swayed in the least by folks who pointed out that there was an open seat and if a Democrat filled it, it would change the Court from conservative to liberal. They didn’t care because the Supreme Court being liberal was NOT as important to them as preventing a Democrat from being president.
They got their “preferred” outcome — they prevented the Dem from winning, which they believed was much more important to them than having RBG lead a 5 person liberal majority on the Supreme Court and having a Democrat fill any seats that fall open in the future.
Bully for them! They have no right to blame RBG for a choice they willingly made in 2016. I don’t know why they are complaining since they got the outcome they wanted. They prevented a Dem from appointing a Justice to fill an empty seat.
They would have been more outraged if the “evil baby-bombing Democrat” had won in 2016 and the Supreme Court had been 5-4 liberal! The Supreme Court being liberal would be nothing compared their outrage at an “evil baby-bombing Dem” being president.
Remember, what we heard non-stop from them was that it would be a very bad outcome if the Democrat won. Since having a Democrat winning would have led to a 5-4 majority liberal Supreme Court and THAT was not important to them, it sure takes chutzpah for those folks to complain now. They got their wish and prevented a Democrat from being president in 2016.
Just imagine what this country would be if the Supreme Court was 6-3 progressive. Everyone who voted for the Dem in 2016 wanted that outcome. Everyone who didn’t got their “victory”.
A while back, in response to to the unsupported claim that keeps reappearing here from time to time that “Jill Stein cost Hillary Clinton the election”, I highlighted the fact that the claim was based on a dubious assumption about the number of Stein voters who would have voted for Clinton if the choice had been only Trump or Clinton.
To make that claim, one had to assume that nearly all of Stein’s votes would have gone to Clinton in PA in particular. And the exit polls and pre-election polls at the time indicated that many of those people would not have voted at all (just stayed home) if the choices had only been Trump or Clinton.
I noted at the time that the issue was not about what was possible (whether Stein voters were sufficient to make up Clinton’s deficit but about what was most probable (based on estimates of just how many of those Stein voters would have chosen Clinton and not simply stayed home)
Well, two researchers estimated just that.Eg, what fraction of Stein voters would likely have voted for Clinton (and not simply stayed home) and they consider not only Stein voters but libertarian Gary Johnson’s as well.
Their analysis finds that “Johnson and Stein did not deprive Clinton of an Electoral College majority”.
But I’m sure it will probably make no difference with those who are intent on blaming everyone except the one who was actually responsible for Clinton’s loss (Hillary Clinton) and the one actually responsible for the current Extreme Court (Donald Trump).
Quite frankly, I actually view the whole blame game as juvenile, especially when it is not based on anything more than an unscientific handwaving argument that “Jill Stein’s votes in the 3 close states were enough to account for Clinton’s loss and therefore Stein necessarily caused Clinton’s loss”. That was never a warranted assumption and the recent analysis indicates it is very likely just wrong.
Did Gary Johnson and Jill Stein Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency? A Counterfactual Analysis of Minor Party Voting in the 2016 US Presidential Election
Devine, Christopher J. and Kopko, Kyle C.
Did Gary Johnson and Jill Stein Cost Hillary Clinton the Presidency? A Counterfactual Analysis of Minor Party Voting in the 2016 US Presidential Election’ The Forum, vol. 19, no. 2, 2021, pp. 173-201. https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-0011
37 Pages
Posted: 22 Feb 2022
Christopher J. Devine
Independent; University of Dayton
Kyle Kopko
Elizabethtown College
Date Written: September 7, 2021
Abstract
Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote for president in 2016, but lost to Donald Trump in the Electoral College. Trump’s margin of victory in several decisive battleground states was smaller than the combined vote for the two leading minor party candidates: Gary Johnson, of the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, of the Green Party. The perception that Johnson and Stein ‘stole’ the 2016 presidential election from Clinton is widespread, and potentially consequential for future minor party candidacies, but it has not yet been rigorously tested. In this article, we extend Lacy and Burden’s (1999) analysis of minor party voting in the 1992 election, by using data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to estimate a multinomial probit model of voting behavior – including outcomes for vote choice and abstention – and calculate the predicted probabilities that Johnson and Stein voters would have voted for another candidate or abstained from voting, had one or both of these candidates been excluded from the ballot. We then reallocate Johnson’s and Stein’s votes accordingly, to estimate Clinton’s and Trump’s counterfactual vote shares nationally and within key battleground states. Our analysis indicates that Johnson and Stein did not deprive Clinton of an Electoral College majority, nor Trump the legitimacy of winning the national popular vote. We estimate that most Johnson and Stein voters would have abstained from voting if denied the choice to vote for their preferred candidate, and that most of Johnson’s remaining voters would have supported Trump.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3989209
Not incidentally, there is another glaring issue with blaming anyone who voted for Stein for Clinton’s loss (and for the current Supreme Court makeup): in many states , Stein voters simply had no chance of mattering.
I actually noted that fact in a comment well before the 2016 election and stated quite clearly that ,IF I lived in a swing state where it looked like my vote could matter (based on polls), I would not vote for Stein and would vote for Clinton instead. But since I live in CT, I noted that I could safely vote for Stein with little concern. (I also said I would watch polls in CT right up until the election and base my decision on that)
CT is hardly the only state where Stein never had a snowball’s chance in hell of making even a tiny dent in Clinton’s numbers This is true in lots of other states as well — the vast majority, in fact.
So even if one ignored the above detailed analysis that concludes that Stein very likely did not make the difference (or Johnson, for that matter), it would still be pure bullshit to simply accuse every Stein voter of effectively handing the election to Trump because they may very well live in a state where there was never a significant chance that Stein would make a difference.
Basically, in any state where the differential between Trump and Clinton was likely to be large (based on polls), a vote for Stein made no significant difference. As I said, it was only in the swing states where Trump and Clinton were likely to be evenly matched that Stein even had a chance of making a difference — and as it turned out, actually did NOT.
SomeDam Poet,
The teachers union is corrupt. The teachers union supports sexual predators. The teachers union enables lazy union teachers to sleep through classes. Charter schools don’t have union teachers and they have great results. Charter schools fire lazy teachers or teachers who are predators and don’t waste taxpayer money.
I am just repeating the “truth”. Are you saying I am not allowed to ever criticize the union because the union is perfect? If push comes to shove I will still vote for the union, but I will be amplifying the “important” narratives about how evil and corrupt the teachers union is every day and cheering on the media that is informing the public of this ‘truth”.
Are you thanking me? Remember, I’m demonizing the union and telling everyone how corrupt and complicit the union is in order to make the union better.
Don’t blame me if people don’t support unions. Don’t blame the media who is just informing the public of the “truth”.
Remember, when groups of committed public school parents are amplifying the narratives that the teachers’ union is corrupt and complicit, that’s a good thing. By making the public understand how awful the union is, we are helping to make the union better. That’s why – if you ask nicely – I will commit myself to amplifying all the corruption and evil things about the teachers’ union. Surely you don’t think the union is perfect. Surely you aren’t saying I am not ever allowed to criticize the union.
So I will model my behavior after yours. I will tell everyone all the evil and awful things about the union any time there is a vote where support of the union is on the ballot. I won’t mention anything good just like you don’t mention anything good about the Dems. I will amplify only the evil, because I want the union to be better. I will tell everyone a unionized school is no better than a non-unionized school, and it’s important to “send a message” and vote against the union to make it better.
But I will grudgingly vote for pro-union candidates, so don’t blame me. when so many parents who hear my demonizing of the union don’t support the union. It’s all the fault of the union that parents don’t vote for them after hearing lots of “concerned’ parents like me explaining how corrupt and evil the union is. It’s not the media’s fault or mine. If the union was better, people would support it.
I just want the union to be better, and i know by convincing the public that even pro-public school parents like me agree that the union is evil and corrupt, I am doing the work you admire to make the union more progressive.
And when you wonder why the anti-union candidate won, I will tell you that it is all the fault of the union. If the union wasn’t so awful that I had to go around demonizing them, more people would have voted to support the union.
Get it?
You probably don’t. Suffice it to say, the election of 2016 was IMPORTANT.
Those who thought they were doing the work of angels by demonizing the Democrat candidate were the model for my demonization of the teachers’ union above. You can’t demonize something that is imperfect but very important to support and then absolve yourself of responsibility because people believed your “truths”.
If I thought having a teachers union was important, in the lead up to an election that would either empower the union or completely decimate it, I would not spend my time demonizing the union and convincing the public that it didn’t matter if the anti-union candidate wins because there was nothing good about the union.
I would focus on the GOOD things about the union and work hard to explain why this election mattered.
That’s what Diane Ravitch did with the Democrats in 2016. She is critical of the Democrats, but she never demonized them. She talked about the IMPORTANT reasons why people should vote for the Dems — especially the Supreme Court that had an open seat. But a few folks here kept saying that the Supreme Court wasn’t important because the Dems were just so awful and they only focused on what was bad. Now they say, don’t blame me. It’s not their fault that the Dems lost. They just “told the truth”. Just like I “told the truth” about the teachers union. But you didn’t tell the truth. Diane Ravitch told the truth. Other folks demonized the Dems and that was far from truthful. Just like my demonization of the union above wasn’t truthful.
But would you excuse my false demonization of the teachers union because after working hard to amplify the false narrative that the union was evil so that many people believed it, I grudgingly voted for the candidate that didn’t want to totally wipe out the union?
“he teachers union is corrupt. The teachers union supports sexual predators. The teachers union enables lazy union teachers to sleep through classes. Charter schools don’t have union teachers and they have great results. Charter schools fire lazy teachers or teachers who are predators and don’t waste taxpayer money.”
?????
Not sure how to respond to that, other than to say
Congratulations! You managed to write all those words and completely avoid the subject of my post.
SDP,
I am clearly wasting my time. I already know that you are absolutely certain that folks like you who amplifed all the character assassination and demonization of “the Democrats” during a Supreme Court-changing election in 2016 believe you were doing good work instead of being used by the far right to amplify and legitimize their smears.
The far right knew their smears of the Dems lose their power when the ONLY people saying it are identified as being far right. They are legitimized and amplified as soon as the narrative changes to “even many Dems” or “even many progressives” agree that the Dems are corrupt/evil/liars/untrustworthy.
That’s what happened in 2016.
I was hoping that if you thought about this in terms of the teachers’ union instead of the Dems — because you seem to be able to be more fair minded about the teachers’ union – you would understand why your anti-Dem demonization rhetoric is a problem.
I support the teachers union. I also understand and agree with many of you who have criticisms of how the union often functions. But I don’t ONLY focus on all the reasons to attack the union and amplify only those reasons in a way that demonizes the union.
You clearly are able to criticize the union AND make it very clear that the union is IMPORTANT. The union – despite being far from perfect – is not so worthless that it doesn’t matter whether parents vote for union-hating politicians and empower them. It is possible to criticize the union and still amplify the GOOD things about the union and the importance of empowering the union, not empowering the enemies of the union.
Diane Ravitch criticizes the Dems all the time, but she doesn’t demonize them. She makes it clear that it is IMPORTANT to support Dems in general elections over the very dangerous far right Republicans. But some critics of the Dems thought it was better to amplify how evil, corrupt and untrustworthy Dems were and minimize the importance of voting for them against Republicans — after all “there is no difference”. It doesn’t matter whether people who believed those who told them that since there is no difference between the Dems and the Republicans stayed home or voted for a 3rd party candidate or even decided to vote for a Republican. Every single poll showed a large majority of voters believed the propaganda about how untrustworthy and corrupt the Dems were — but a much smaller number thought the same of the Republicans.
Imagine if a group of committed and dedicated public school parents started demonizing the teachers union with the same kind of nasty rhetoric that was used by some here to demonize the Dems — and imagine if that group of committed and dedicated public school parents did that specifically during an election between a rabidly anti-union candidate and a candidate who was supported by those corrupt and co-opted union leaders.
Imagine if those committed and dedicated public school parents amplified ONLY the narrative that the union is a corrupt institution that is entirely untrustworthy and there is no difference between empowering the union or empowering the folks who want to permanently destroy the union. Imagine if those parents encouraged everyone to vote AGAINST the candidates who were endorsed by the complicit union leaders, even if that empowered rabidly anti-union folks whose agenda was to totally destroy the union.
Imagine if you asked those parents why they were demonizing the union and telling parents to “send a message” by voting against the union, when they knew that would empower the folks who want to destroy unions altogether. And those parents answered you by saying “how dare you keep saying that the union is perfect”. I bet that would annoy you, since you already recognize that the union is imperfect but that has nothing to do with why you would object if a group of public school parents were doing nothing but demonizing the union and telling everyone to vote against any politician who was endorsed by the teachers’ union.
If you still don’t get it, then I give up. But I will follow your lead and treat the union exactly as you treat Democrats, instead of what I do now, which is treat the union the way Diane Ravitch treats Democrats. Seeing their flaws AND their good points, not just amplifying the bad.
These days, the worst Democrat is 100x better than the best Republican because the Republican Party apparatus said that the invasion of the US Capitol by a violent mob on Jan 6, 2021, was “legitimate political discourse.”
As far as I can tell, the only Republicans with a shred of integrity are Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Adam has already announced his retirement, and Liz is far behind in the polls.
NYCSP claims (without evidence) that “folks like you … amplifed all the character assassination and demonization of “the Democrats” during a Supreme Court-changing election in 2016,”
In other words, because you can’t respond to the actual subject of my above posts, YOU are now resorting to character assassination?
That’s very telling.
But link to even a single comment made by me in which I engaged in “character assassination and demonization of “the Democrats” during the election of 2016.”
Just one itty bitty comment.
Not a lot to ask of someone who accuses me of “character assassination and demonization of Democrats.”
If you can’t do it. (which you can’t because no such comment exists), withdraw the claim and cease and desist with your bullshit claims and accusations.
Otherwise. You will just look like a liar.
SomeDam poet,
You responded to an invented thing — please cite a single instance where I even mentioned Jill Stein. I did not. Not one time. You wrote a long post about a person who is irrelevant whom I never mentioned.
What I have said over and over again that you keep avoiding addressing:
In November of 2016, the Supreme Court was divided 4-4 and there was an open seat the next president would fill.
If RBG had stepped down in 2014, everything I wrote in the above sentence would STILL be true.
Regardless of whether RBG resigned in 2014 of if she didn’t, in November of 2016 the Supreme Court was divided 4-4 and there was an open seat the next president would fill.
Were you doing what Diane Ravitch did and telling everyone how important it was to vote for the Democrat because having a Supreme Court that was liberal instead of right wing was very, very important?
Or were you bashing the Democrats and talking about how they were corrupt and stole the election from Bernie?
If you were telling people how important it was to vote for the Democrat to fill that open seat, I apologize for not realizing that is what you were doing.
There were some folks here who spent all of their time attacking the Democrats. Instead of saying “we MUST make sure a Democrat fills that empty seat”, they basically said it didn’t really matter.
If you knew it mattered a lot and said so, then you weren’t one of them. There is a big difference between quietly deciding to vote for the 3rd party candidate when you actually WANT the Democrat to win because you know the Supreme Court is important, and loudly voting for the 3rd party candidate while proclaiming how corrupt the Dems are and reinforcing the narrative that the Dems are no better than the Republicans and it doesn’t matter who wins.
It did matter. Diane Ravitch knew that and tried to tell people here. But some people didn’t listen and they just kept bashing the Democrat and saying there was nothing good about her and there was no reason to vote for her.
There was a very good reason to vote for her – the Supreme Court. If you were saying that in 2016, that’s great. My comments are directed toward those who did not think the Supreme Court mattered. Even when it was a 4-4 tie with an open seat, they would never admit that the Supreme Court mattered A LOT.
I (apparently wrongly) understood that you were someone who thought the Supreme Court was only important if the Democrat in the general election was your chosen candidate from the primary, but if another candidate won the primary, then it didn’t matter whether a Democrat or a Republican filled that open seat.
I’m happy to be corrected if I misunderstood. I don’t really get what your position is, but if you are now saying that you knew the importance of the open Supreme Court seat being filled by a Democrat in 2016, then we agree.
Who are you trying to kid? Do you think everyone here is just stupid and can’t read the above comments?
You may not have said the name “Stein ,” in your comments but you were certainly referring directly to Stein voters in this comment above
“obviously I am referring to the people – whether they supported Sanders or not — who did not vote for the Democrat in Nov. 2016. They obviously did NOT care if the Supreme Court stayed right wing or if the open seat in a 4-4 tie was filled by Justice who allowed RBG to lead a majority.”
“voters either cared enough about the Supreme Court to make sure that open seat was filled by a Democrat so that the Supreme Court had a 5-4 liberal majority, or they believed that it was far more important to defeat the Democrat even if that gave the far right a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court.
The seat was open. The Court was tied 4-4. If RBG had retired, the court would STILL be tied 4-4.
**Everyone should own their vote. **”
https://dianeravitch.net/2022/06/30/rolling-stone-supreme-court-rules-6-3-that-the-planet-should-burn/#comment-3389110
So. You said above that
Obviously I am referring to the people – whether they supported Sanders or not — who did not vote for the Democrat in Nov. 2016., But are now trying to claim you were not referring (at least partly,) to Stein voters?
Let’s just say that you are not a very good bullshitter.
You have also commented about Jill Stein in the past (in conversations with me!!)
Here’s just one lovely gem
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/09/17/pennsylvania-supreme-court-knocks-green-party-off-the-ballot/#comment-3112664
First of all, I never said ANYTHING at all (in that exchange or anywhere else) about “my view of the Stein voters” — eg who stayed home or (in rare cases) voted for Trump.
You just made that up.
Which sure makes your whole preceding paragraph appear to be little more than a rhetorical trick to facilitate what amounts to an endless stream of slanders against Stein voters , including
but Jill Stein voters were motivated by their hatred of the democrats, which did bother them much more than having right wing Supreme Court Justices and racists empowered.
And not incidentally, in that exchange, you also challenged my quoting of Nate Silver on the subject of whether Stein voters caused the Clinton loss.
https://dianeravitch.net/2020/09/17/pennsylvania-supreme-court-knocks-green-party-off-the-ballot/#comment-3112640
Nate Silver was saying back then essentially the same thing that the authors of the analysis I linked to above concluded: that Stein voters were NOT responsible for Hillary Clinton’s loss.
And what makes your offhand (evidence less) dismissal of Silver back then very funny indeed is that Silver was effectively right on the money with his predictions about the percentages of Stein voters who would have voted for Clinton and those who would have stayed home.
He said “The breakdown might have been something like 35 percent Clinton, 10 percent Trump and 55 percent wouldn’t vote. That doesn’t wind up netting very many votes for HRC.” That’s pretty much exactly what the authors of the recent paper concluded.
As I pointed out in my comment to which you replied
“For Clinton to have won the electoral vote, 88.7% of the Stein voters in Pennsylvania would have to have actually cast a vote for Clinton had Stein not been on the ballot. IE, if just a little over 11% had not voted at all , Clinton would still have lost, (regardless of what happened in Michigan and Wisconsin)”
So, compare the percentage of Stein votes that Clinton would have needed to win PA (snd hence to even have a chance of beating Trump regardless of what happened in MI and WI) to the estimated percentage she would have received (35%). It was not even close.
And incidentally. I am still waiting for the link to one of my comments that engaged in character assassination and,/or demonization of Democrat(s) during the 2016 election.
But I would not advise anyone to hold their breath because it doesn’t exist.
You just made that up as well. As you are wont to do.
By the way. This is going to be my last comment (,ever) to you because I have already wasted far too much time debunking your nonsense.
SDP,
Why are you talking about a conversation from 2 years ago? That isn’t the conversation I am having now.
Try to follow my logic — it is not all that difficult.
Diane Ravitch made it very clear in 2016 that voting for the Democrat in the general election was important. There was an open Supreme Court seat, for goodness sake. It was important to have a Democrat choose who to fill it, especially when it would turn the Court from a right wing to a progressive court led by RBG.
I am starting to suspect, SDP, that you were one of the ones who was trying to MINIMIZE the importance of voting for the Democrat instead of amplifying how important it was. I get why you feel guilty if you did. Just admit you were wrong, the way I admit I was wrong to minimize the importance of voting for Jimmy Carter over Reagan.
You are spending way too much time on Jill Stein voters when Jill Stein voters were only PART of the problem– the real problem were that too many Americans agreed with yo that it wasn’t important to vote for a democrat to fill that open seat in 2016, and enough of them voted for Jill Stein or STAYED HOME to give Trump the victory.
For the record, you STILL won’t actually say that it was important to vote for the Democrat in 2016 so that the Democrat could choose who to fill that open Supreme Court when the Court was tied 4-4.
Do you think it was important? If you can’t say that, then just own it.
But it sounds ridiculous for you to try to absolve yourself of whatever guilt you feel. If you didn’t believe it mattered if people didn’t vote for the Democrat, you were wrong. Own it.
Look, my ranting about how awful Jimmy Carter is and voting for John Anderson didn’t make Reagan win. Anderson didn’t draw enough votes away from Carter to make a difference.
That doesn’t mean I was RIGHT to tell people not to vote for Carter because it didn’t matter if Carter lost. It DID matter. I was wrong. I can admit it.
If, in 2016, you were one of the folks on here who kept saying that it wasn’t important whether or not the Democrat won when Diane Ravitch was telling people how important it was, then you were wrong.
You don’t get to say you were right because Jill Stein’s votes didn’t matter. I don’t get to say I was right in 1980 because John Anderson’s votes weren’t enough for Carter to defeat Reagan.
Being right or wrong doesn’t have to do with a victory. It is about the truth. And the truth is that the Democrat was much better than the Republican candidate and electing the Democrat instead of the Republican in 2016 mattered.
That’s the truth. The truth is that Carter was better than Reagan and it mattered.
I am done discussing this with anyone who is still certain that rabidly opposing the Democrat running against Trump in 2016 was the right thing to do. It wasn’t. Period. Correction: it was the right thing to do for those who were not bothered by the far right having a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court.
I refuse to be like you and justify my wrongheaded certainty that it didn’t matter whether Carter or Reagan won in 1980. It mattered and those of us who said it didn’t were wrong. You are free to believe I was right.
As a point of information for all.
I won’t respond with a comment in the future, but that doesn’t mean I won’t link back to the above exchange any time NYCSP even implies that those who voted for Stein are responsible for Clinton’s loss — and hence for the current makeup of the Supreme Court
Because it is actually contrary to the evidence.
I will also link separately to the demonstrably false statement that
“You responded to an invented thing — please cite a single instance where I even mentioned Jill Stein. I did not. Not one time. You wrote a long post about a person who is irrelevant whom I never mentioned.”
By posting the following link to the comment that proves the claim false.
https://dianeravitch.net/2022/06/30/rolling-stone-supreme-court-rules-6-3-that-the-planet-should-burn/#comment-3389110
As I said , though NYCSP did not mention Stein specifically by name, the reference to Stein is unmistakable and irrefutable.
I have bookmarked the links for easy reference.
My reply to this isn’t posting. Maybe this will.
But I have no idea what SDP’s obsession with Jill Stein is and what a post from 2 years ago has to do with THIS discussion!
Those who knew that the Supreme Court was important – like Diane Ravitch – told people to vote for the Democrat against Trump in 2016.
Those who did not believe it mattered whether the Democrat chose the justice to fill an open seat with the Supreme Court tied 4-4 told folks it was NOT important to vote for the Democrat. Some of the people voted for Jill Stein, some stayed home, some voted for someone else.
OMG I am willing to admit I was wrong to think that it was a GOOD thing to vote against Jimmy Carter in 1980 because it didn’t matter whether Carter or Reagan won.
I am not obsessed with telling everyone that Reagan would have won if Carter got John Anderson’s votes to avoid admitting I was wrong. I was STILL wrong.
I was still wrong to encourage people NOT to vote for Carter because “it didn’t matter”. The fact that Carter would have lost doesn’t mean I was right!!
Note that SDP can’t just admit that Diane Ravitch was right about how important it was to elect the Democrat in 2016.
https://dianeravitch.net/2022/06/30/rolling-stone-supreme-court-rules-6-3-that-the-planet-should-burn/#comment-3389467
SDP,
One reason I admire Diane Ravitch so much is that she doesn’t have a problem admitting when she is wrong.
You keep posting links. I STILL have no idea whether you agree with me that Diane Ravitch was absolutely correct when she said it was important to vote for the Democrat in 2016.
You are making this way too complicated.
From you many links, you seem to be saying that you believed in 2020 that it was okay NOT to vote for the Democrat. It wasn’t important.
Were you right about that, or wrong?
I find it very troubling if you can’t just say that Diane Ravitch was correct that it was important to vote for the Democrat in the 2016 general election when the direction of the Supreme Court was up for grabs.
why can’t you just say that? Is it because you still don’t believe it?
That bodes poorly for our democracy and our education system.
I mean to link to this one
https://dianeravitch.net/2022/06/30/rolling-stone-supreme-court-rules-6-3-that-the-planet-should-burn/#comment-3389439
My bad
SDP,
I find it very troubling if you can’t just say that Diane Ravitch was correct that it was important to vote for the Democrat in the 2016 general election when the direction of the Supreme Court was up for grabs.
Everything else you posted is just noise.
You posted so many links when you can easily prove how I wrong I am by just posting
“Diane Ravitch was right, it was important to vote for the Democrat in the 2016 general election when the direction of the Supreme Court was up for grabs.”
That’s it! If that’s what you believed in 2016 then we agreed in 2016. If you didn’t believe that in 2016 but you believe that now, that’s great, it isn’t a big deal to acknowledge you were wrong in 2016.
I admitted I was wrong in 1980. I didn’t keep posting convoluted links to studies that showed that people who voted for Anderson didn’t cause Carter’s loss to Reagan because I was incapable of admitting I was wrong.
The paper you cited doesn’t address the voters who listened to the folks saying “there is no difference between the Dems and the Republicans (and the Supreme Court with its open seat doesn’t matter)” and didn’t bother to vote at all.
Right wing voters knew it mattered.
Wait just a minute.
DIANE said–& has said—that RBG should have stepped down, because she WAS 89, had had numerous bouts with cancer & what did she think, that she was going to live forever?
I agree with Diane’s opinion. She served her time honorably & did a remarkable job. But, had she stepped down at the right time, this all would have had a different outcome.
Yes, in addition to the analysis I highlighted above, RGB is another important factor that some folks would rather ignore in their Supreme Blame Game.
Yet another important factor is that, as Lloyd astutely pointed out , Mitch McConnell’s dishonest, antiAmerican politicking cost Obama appointments.
Yet another factor is that Roberts’ black robe has opened up and exposed him to be every bit as extreme and ideological as the others, having voted with the Extremes on the vast majority of their very recent rulings, including the Kennedy ruling that was based on lies and was nothing more than a fraud.
The subject of who (other than Trump) is “responsible” for the current majority makeup on the Extreme Court (hattip Bob) is a complicated one, but one thing is clear and pretty simple to understand: Blaming Democratic and unaffiliated Stein voters like me for the current Court makeup is a fool’s errand and just makes one look unscientific to anyone who has actually been paying attention.
I think we have seen quite enough here and elsewhere of the Supreme Blame game, thank you very much. It’s simply not supported by the evidence.
But, alas, like a Zombie, it will undoubtedly never die.
Blaming me for Reagan is just not fair. I just wanted to defeat Carter because my chosen candidate didn’t win the primary. It’s not my fault that I didn’t care if Reagan chose a bunch of conservative (although not compared to today) Justices. It’s the fault of the people who supported the evil Jimmy Carter in the primary, because we all know Ted Kennedy would have roundly defeated that actor and we would have had universal healthcare in 1981.
Apparently, the lesson learned is that next time there is an open seat and the Supreme Court is tied 4-4, everyone whose candidate didn’t win the Democratic primary should refuse to vote for the Democrat. Remember, it doesn’t matter if a right wing Republican fills the open Supreme Court seat.
Who really cares if Citizens United is repealed or voting rights protected? What’s important is showing that if my preferred candidate doesn’t win the Democratic primary, I won’t support the one who did. I will demonize that candidate instead.
Don’t blame me if a right wing Republican fills that open Supreme Court seat so that court continues to be right wing instead of liberal. I just wanted to make sure that whichever corrupt Democrat who defeated my preferred candidate didn’t get to be president.
Now I understand that the way to a progressive future is for every person who votes in the Democratic primary to follow that model. Remember, if you voted for a moderate candidate and the progressive candidate wins the primary – work hard to undermine that progressive candidate in the general election. And if you voted for a progressive candidate and a moderate candidate wins the primary – work hard to undermine the moderate Dem in the general election.
In my very first election, I knew that if Ted Kennedy couldn’t be president, then what was important was preventing Jimmy Carter from becoming president.
All this time I thought I was wrong, but now I learn that I was right all along! Interesting.
Some people would rather ignore the fact that the Supreme Court was tied 4-4 with an OPEN seat, and whichever candidate won would fill it.
If you did not care whether or not a Democrat filled that seat, just own it. Stop being a hypocrite and twisting yourself into knots about how you might have cared but felt obligated to demonize the Democrat to help defeat her.
Those who knew the Supreme Court was important did what Diane Ravitch did. They TOLD people that the Supreme Court was important.
They didn’t tell people that the Democrat was corrupt and untrustworthy and it didn’t matter if she won.
It’s not complicated. Denial is.
I agree, Diane got that immediately and was consistent. I believe RBG should have stepped down as soon as she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer or wait for a Democratic administration to do so. She was an outlier having survived as long as she did after her diagnosis, and who knows how long she had it before then.
Bob Shepherd wasn’t talking about Diane Ravitch.
He was talking about D77.
D77 is quiet about all of these 6-3 decisions after unaccountably blaming RBG not stepping down (and not Trump, not the Republicans, not the 6 far right Justices who made this decision!)
D77 voted to PREVENT a Democrat from choosing Supreme Court justices because the Supreme Court wasn’t important to her. There was an empty seat with a 4-4 tie and the Supreme Court wasn’t important to her.
That’s why D77 is quiet.
Diane Ravitch rightly recognized that the 2016 election would immediately impact the Supreme Court and she acted accordingly.
Those who did not, like D77, have a lot of chutzpah scapegoating RBG for the bad outcome that just happened to be the outcome that they voted for because they said the Supreme Court didn’t matter.
Retired Good ol’ Mitch may have found a way to get around an Obama SC pick anyway. Who knows. CBK
The brand of religious in SCOTUS believe in the Rapture- quickening the prophecy.
The Holey Rupture
(Beam me up, Scotty!)
Belief in Holy Rapture
Requires a holey rupture
In neocortex matter
It’s madder than a Hatter
The Holy Rapture
Scotty, beam me up!
To Jesus , with my clan
The Earth is getting rough
It’s hotter than cayenne
Beam Me Up, SCOTUS?
Ha ha ha haa
Now, that is funny.
The Holy Rapture
SCOTUS, beam me up!
To Jesus , with my clan
The Earth is getting rough
It’s hotter than cayenne
(Hat tip to Jon Awbrey for the most excellent suggestion “Beam me up, SCOTUS!)
Better title “Supreme Unction”
In the Catholic Church, the anointing of the sick, also known as Extreme Unction, is a Catholic sacrament that is administered to a Catholic “who, having reached the age of reason, begins to be in danger due to sickness or old age”, except in the case of those who “persevere obstinately in manifest grave sin”. — from wikipedia
Extreme Unction”
The ruling was oily
As oily can be
Disguised with a doily
To cover The See*
The Holy See (The Pope)
I once did a climb in Utah called “Extreme Unction”
It made me sweat quite a lot, which made my hands slip.
I used God’s name in vain many times, but, despite this, I eventually made it up.
It was located in a climbing area (in Ferguson canyon) with a lot of religiously titled climbs
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105739907/extreme-unction
In general, climbers are a very creative (and sacrilegious) lot
Beam me up SCOTUS!
Ha ha ha.
Thanks Jon, I’m still laughing at that.
As you can tell, I have a twisted sense of humor –something else common to climbers. My climbing partners and I had a motto “Nothing is sacred”
A very good motto to live by, in my sacriligious opinion.
Supreme Sanctimoniousness”
Nothing is Sacred
Especially The Court
Infected with hatred
I’m sad to report
Supreme Hatred
They hate us for our freedom
They hate us for our birth
They say that “We don’t need ’em”
And hate the very Earth
They hate the Native persons
And confiscate their rights
They hate the liberal versions
Especially in tights
They really hate enviros
Who speak for mother Earth
And love the manic pyros
Who shrink the forest girth
Poet-
An organization that covered up crimes that its highest officiants committed against children, that spawned justices who lied to get on the Supreme Court in order to instal death-causing theocracy and, that has a legacy of anti-Black action. I’m outraged at its defenders.
Linda I’m not “defending” what’s truly awful about the Catholic hierarchy. NEVER HAVE. I’m calling into question extremes, bias, misinformation, misquotes, cherry-picking, logical fallacies and generally misleading statements. CBK
Since I feel like we’ll be experiencing a lot of these in the coming years, we might as well learn about the origin of the term Pyrrhic victory.