There is a good chance, if the Six Injustices of the Supreme Court do in their next term what they have demonstrated themselves entirely capable of doing this paSt term - taking a sledgehammer to 240 years of constitutional precedent in the name of recreating the United States as the Republic of Gilead - that Trump and the MAGA movement won’t need a mob to put them in power to accomplish the goal of creating a christo-fascist theocratic dictatorship in 2024.
TC, Bravo! Your breakdown and analysis of Moore v. Harper, a challenge to North Carolina’s new congressional map to be taken up by the Court, was as clear as the sound of breaking glass.
'How dangerous is this? A Republican victory at the Supreme Court would, according to election law expert Rick Hasen, “radically alter the power of state courts to rein in state legislatures that violate voting rights in federal elections. It could essentially neuter the ability of state courts to protect voters under provisions of state constitutions against infringement of their rights.”
Have I ever been 'thrilled' by TC's use of language, to quote -- 'Six Injustices of the Supreme Court recreating the United States as the Republic of Gilead - that Trump and the MAGA movement won’t need a mob to put them in power to accomplish the goal of creating a christo-fascist theocratic dictatorship in 2024. -- Yes, I have been thrilled. I was so giddy with delight after reading
THEY WON'T NEED A MOB IN 2024, I have rushed to sing TC's praises.
Thank you for the history of the country's various methods of choosing electors. It is history as thick with politics as choosing electors is today. A thick, juicy political steak and reason to reread this TC masterpiece.
The 'Era of Good Feelings' is not to be missed. It took place when ‘…congressional lawmakers in both House and Senate attempted to amend the Constitution to end legislative selection of electors and mandate district-based elections for the Electoral College.' This highlight is the pièce de résistance of TC's work, and I will not give it away.
Have the American people leaned democratic all along? TC has an answer for that.
" a christo-fascist theocratic dictatorship"; thank you TC for summing it up as clear as it is, when careful study of history and law is making it ever more difficult to grasp. USA on the level of Russia. The world will be difficult to recognize!
To see the USA now, Olof, makes imagining it more cruel, dark and violent possible; it is unbearable because our suffering would be too great. In NYC, the deaths of the elderly, the immune compromised, the Blacks, the Hispanics, Asian Pacific Americans...from COVID... were all of us. The health workers, nurses, aids, therapists, doctors...we saw their exhaustion in their eyes along with their care for us, and we knew of their deaths. We banged on pots, sang and clapped for them. The streets were full of love, appreciation and sadness. I remember now TC's, THEY WON'T NEED A MOB IN 2024. It is alive with death and with concern. He yearns to protect us from their venom, knowing that we are on the RIGHT SIDE.
thanks, Tom. this is the sort of thing you do better than just about anyone: summarize some truly complicated, dicey history/political science very clearly, but with plenty of context. very difficult to do this when you're also shouting at the same time that the theater's on fire, but you more than manage, every time. and yeah, this shit's very scary.
The tragedy is that we came THIS close to eliminating the Electoral College in 1971, but the Senate filibuster in the hands of Southern Democrats and Republicans killed the bill, which had passed in a landslide in the House. Sic transit gloria mundi..... If it had passed, we would have a FAR different country, probably more like a West Europe, with universal medical care and a more balanced government. It seems unlikely we will ever again be able to add more amendments to the Constitution in our polarized state, so here we are.....
Sic transit gloria mundi.....because the election is on a Tuesday. Yet Biden et al refuse to go on the offensive. He is opposed to ending the filibuster, opposed to cleaning up the SCROTUS, opposed to doing anything that might be construed as countering the Republicans onslaught. The Dems have no vision for America. Only Bernie and the other progressives have put forward anything to believe in and the Corporate Dems are busy trying to kill them off. Whether Biden can or not do what needs to be done is not as important as putting it forward. Thank God for Gavin Newsom in California. IF there is any point in an election in 2024, I hope he runs against Biden.
Ummmm... actually, in his commentary this past week about Roe, Biden specifically called for a filibuster "carve out" for abortion rights and pleaded with people to elect more senators, since that cannot happen without a minimum of two more D senators to overcome Manchin and Sinema. So far, his urging has gotten Feinstein and Casey - who were "iffy" on voting to change the filibuster - to come out in support.
Yeah, Biden does things I wish he wouldn't, like the proposed deal to trade a lifetime Wingnut court appointment for a maximum 6 years US attorney in KY. But as a friend of mine you all know because you read his blog says:
If you want a better country, be better citizens. VOTE.
It doesn't matter what Biden or Shumer or Pelosi or Bernie or AOC wants - THEY WON'T GET ANY OF IT BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A MAJORITY!!!!!!!!!
Simple arithmetic matters.
And to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the organization and people you've got, not the organization and people you'd want.
Allen, if the people of America can't figure out that they don't want authoritariansim, then they are too goddamned dumb to deserve anything but what they get - like the Germans in the 30s.
And obviously that will include all of us who say we don't want it, and yet don't do everything we can to stop it. And I hate to tell you, but the Berners are fucking morons. I know. I went to some of their meetings. They do not and probably never will represent anything approaching a majority of Americans.
What do the Berners have to do with now? What do they have to do with Bernie's positions and actions?
When will you pull this one out of your Rumsfeld file?
“There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”
Allen, I have been thinking of you and your extended family of Ukrainians. Your Blog isn't the appropriate delivery system for this. I chose Stevie Wonder to express the feeling. 🌻
Absolutely the case, and our only hope is that the more progressive and the younger Dems simply rebel and campaign the way they want, and dare Biden, Pelosi and the DNC to cut them off from campaign money..... The progressives, even the Squad, have done everything they can to get their agenda across, including cooperating on the BBB plan and seeing their effort shot down by the Repubs and Manchin.....Bernie would be considered a centrist in Europe, but here he had the best ideas. Our problem is that so many voters have drunk the Kool-Aid that any government actions to make peoples' lives better is "socialism" that passing even basic stuff like Medicare for All (an INSURANCE operation, NOT "socialized medicine"). Of course, you could always blow their minds by telling them the truth - the United States have had true socialized medicine for over 400 years, in the operation of the Veterans Administration. The first precursor to the VA was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620.....and in one form or another has come down to us.....
I don't necessarily want the filibuster abolished - there could be a time when it can throw sand in the Republicans' gearbox too. I would want the Norm Ornstein-Al Franken approach to the filibuster - turn it around so 1, it is a debating filibuster (only the bill in question may be debated on the floor - no reading "Green Eggs and Ham" into the Federal Register - attempting to move debate to a new subject would invoke cloture without a vote), and 2, the filibuster must be held by the minority party calling it by having 41 senators on the floor at all times. Instead of taking 60 votes to break a filibuster with a cloture vote, it requires 41 senators to keep a filibuster going. Fall below 41 senators, and the majority leader can call for a cloture vote at any time and send the bill to the full senate for a simple majority vote. A quorum for the Senate is 51 members present. If some idiot calls in a filibuster on a bill from the Senate cloakroom as sometimes happens now, and then goes home for the weekend, and the Senate majority leader then gathers 51 senators and calls a vote for cloture and if the minority party cannot muster 41 senators to hold the filibuster, they take a cloture vote before the miscreant's plane leaves the airport.....
The basic idea is that a filibuster should involve some effort by the calling party and some pain for everyone, to discourage its excessive use..... It would be more difficult for the filibuster party to hold a filibuster with 41 senators than to require 60 senators to break a filibuster. An evil feature of this approach is that the majority party need not have its full membership on the Senate floor unless the majority leader wanted to hold a vote - 2-3 senators would be sufficient to deny a quorum. The minority party by definition would not have a quorum by themselves and thus could not vote or make a motion with fewer than 51 members present. I must be in a very dark place here.....:-)
Important to remember, while not settling in the past and bringing the hammer down on us. Opened eyes, strong spirits, good hearts and the will to survive... and thrive. It is possible.
Yes, for instance: “However, it can clearly be seen by any researcher other than Samuel Alito, that starting in 1812, the public and elected officials turned against such use of the state legislature to choose presidential electors.”
Excellent history. And with this Court’s self appointed role as history professor it should put them to shame.
But it won’t.
The Moore case also has more legal holes than Swiss cheese, not the least of which is the idea a state’s legislature exists separate and apart from the state itself. Or that the part of the Constitution on which they rely only references elections for the House and Senate, not the President. If they try to stretch it to Electors it should put them to shame.
But it won’t.
And there’s the rub. You know at least five Injustices (this is going to catch on, TC), intend to use Moore to allow the GQP legislatures of 30 gerrymandered states to elect the next President and lock out the Democratic Party for a generation or two,… or forever.
We can’t use shame, or history, or legal reasoning to defeat them. We need another way.
Ya know, when Heather Cox Richardson says if the Republicans take over the Congress in November it's all over, people should start listening. She has been a voice of reason and sanity in all this, so if she is hitting the alarm button, we be in a heap o'trouble.....
I live in NC. These Republicans are the sleaziest politicians you can imagine. They have been warring against the common good since 2011. EVERYTHING they do is with a political motive. Districts gerrymandered with surgical precision, HB2 (the bathroom bill), war on public education, legislation to remove powers from the governor, etc. This case is being thrown up against the wall to see if it will stick. They are literally making this $&@! up! They are NOT trying to protect elections in any way. These guys are the poster boys for political corruption.
I grew up in NC, moved away for 30 years for my husband’s job. We moved back because of family and this is home. I am mad as hell that these selfish jerks (Moore, et. al) are willing to endanger the entire country. This bs case is the opposite of what the founders wanted; so is the theory of the unitary executive. I am not a constitutional scholar, but I can read. This case leaves out the part about Congress being able govern elections. The sentence about state courts not being able to review this law shows their evil intent. Politics is a “game” to these R’s with power and money as the prizes. Like tRump, they only care about themselves. They are wicked.
You know how hard 'they' are on our lives and spirit as many of us do. That humans can be so small, such hard murderous balls of evil; we do not want it to be so as the wickedness grows. Along with pain, there is determination. I feel your anger. You are smart, JennSH and feisty. Our story is not all about them, it most clearly about US. Salud.
“Americans have known since 1796 that the Constitution is not a charter for states or state legislatures. It is a charter for people, for our rights and for our right to self government.” Some of your best words, TC. I’m going to stitch them on a pillow, a very big one.
TAFMers, I have one for you and he’s called Clarence Thomas. Clarence is one of the Injustices TC refers to, but he is not one of them, Clarence is The One. ‘He is most powerful Black man in America, Thomas is also our most symptomatic public intellectual, setting out a terrifying vision of race, rights, and violence that’s fast becoming a description of everyday life. It’s no longer a matter of Clarence Thomas’s Court. Increasingly, it’s Clarence Thomas’s America.’
How do you like that? Those are the words of Robin Corey in his New Yorker article ‘The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas’. This political theorist, professor and author, knows his subject having written a book about him two years ago called The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.
We say scary a lot because this is a scary time. If you are up to entering the hall of horrors within Thomas’ chambers, I suggest that you read Corey’s article linked below. Risk the opportunity to learn ‘substantive due process’ and the 2nd Amendment in Clarence’s head.
Yes, I saved Corey's article - scary stuff, because Thomas is the de facto leader of the Court at this point. The Democratic leadership's failure to consider packing the court is political suicide under our current circumstances. Such packing would be fully justified on two counts - first, two seats on the Court were in effect stolen: Gorsuch's in Obama's administration and Barrett's in Trump's, all by Mitch McConnell doing what Mitch does best - cynically manipulating procedure to achieve his own political ends. Second, traditionally the number of Supreme Court justices has been the same as the number of U.S. Circuit Courts. There are now 13 U.S. Circuit Courts - Biden would be following precedent and tradition (thank you, Clarence) in expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices, and he would save the American Experiment for our children and future generations. How cool is that.....
Indeed "the hall of horrors within Thomas’ chambers". Thanks for the link Fern. It opens up for a new world order on the scale of Putins; scary times to say the least. To understand the lunacy of gun sales in the US, the sales profits are too petty, but the revenge from afro American men out of the head of Clarence Thomas is grand enough.
but of course, they won't. and if they did, it would suck even more than things already do. which is not to say it's not tempting....I did read somewhere today (hard to keep all the sources separate) that our Democratic party most closely resembles Britain's Conservatives in terms of policy, since most Tories (with a few lunatic exceptions, supported by no majority anywhere, Brexit notwithstanding) fully accept many of the policies considered "controversial" here (universal health care, abortion rights, taxing the ultra-rich, paid family leave, etc.). anytime I've been asked to explain the Electoral College to someone who didn't understand it, I've had to quit because it's so fucking EMBARRASSING.
TC, Bravo! Your breakdown and analysis of Moore v. Harper, a challenge to North Carolina’s new congressional map to be taken up by the Court, was as clear as the sound of breaking glass.
'How dangerous is this? A Republican victory at the Supreme Court would, according to election law expert Rick Hasen, “radically alter the power of state courts to rein in state legislatures that violate voting rights in federal elections. It could essentially neuter the ability of state courts to protect voters under provisions of state constitutions against infringement of their rights.”
Have I ever been 'thrilled' by TC's use of language, to quote -- 'Six Injustices of the Supreme Court recreating the United States as the Republic of Gilead - that Trump and the MAGA movement won’t need a mob to put them in power to accomplish the goal of creating a christo-fascist theocratic dictatorship in 2024. -- Yes, I have been thrilled. I was so giddy with delight after reading
THEY WON'T NEED A MOB IN 2024, I have rushed to sing TC's praises.
Thank you for the history of the country's various methods of choosing electors. It is history as thick with politics as choosing electors is today. A thick, juicy political steak and reason to reread this TC masterpiece.
The 'Era of Good Feelings' is not to be missed. It took place when ‘…congressional lawmakers in both House and Senate attempted to amend the Constitution to end legislative selection of electors and mandate district-based elections for the Electoral College.' This highlight is the pièce de résistance of TC's work, and I will not give it away.
Have the American people leaned democratic all along? TC has an answer for that.
" a christo-fascist theocratic dictatorship"; thank you TC for summing it up as clear as it is, when careful study of history and law is making it ever more difficult to grasp. USA on the level of Russia. The world will be difficult to recognize!
To see the USA now, Olof, makes imagining it more cruel, dark and violent possible; it is unbearable because our suffering would be too great. In NYC, the deaths of the elderly, the immune compromised, the Blacks, the Hispanics, Asian Pacific Americans...from COVID... were all of us. The health workers, nurses, aids, therapists, doctors...we saw their exhaustion in their eyes along with their care for us, and we knew of their deaths. We banged on pots, sang and clapped for them. The streets were full of love, appreciation and sadness. I remember now TC's, THEY WON'T NEED A MOB IN 2024. It is alive with death and with concern. He yearns to protect us from their venom, knowing that we are on the RIGHT SIDE.
thanks, Tom. this is the sort of thing you do better than just about anyone: summarize some truly complicated, dicey history/political science very clearly, but with plenty of context. very difficult to do this when you're also shouting at the same time that the theater's on fire, but you more than manage, every time. and yeah, this shit's very scary.
The tragedy is that we came THIS close to eliminating the Electoral College in 1971, but the Senate filibuster in the hands of Southern Democrats and Republicans killed the bill, which had passed in a landslide in the House. Sic transit gloria mundi..... If it had passed, we would have a FAR different country, probably more like a West Europe, with universal medical care and a more balanced government. It seems unlikely we will ever again be able to add more amendments to the Constitution in our polarized state, so here we are.....
Sic transit gloria mundi.....because the election is on a Tuesday. Yet Biden et al refuse to go on the offensive. He is opposed to ending the filibuster, opposed to cleaning up the SCROTUS, opposed to doing anything that might be construed as countering the Republicans onslaught. The Dems have no vision for America. Only Bernie and the other progressives have put forward anything to believe in and the Corporate Dems are busy trying to kill them off. Whether Biden can or not do what needs to be done is not as important as putting it forward. Thank God for Gavin Newsom in California. IF there is any point in an election in 2024, I hope he runs against Biden.
Ummmm... actually, in his commentary this past week about Roe, Biden specifically called for a filibuster "carve out" for abortion rights and pleaded with people to elect more senators, since that cannot happen without a minimum of two more D senators to overcome Manchin and Sinema. So far, his urging has gotten Feinstein and Casey - who were "iffy" on voting to change the filibuster - to come out in support.
Yeah, Biden does things I wish he wouldn't, like the proposed deal to trade a lifetime Wingnut court appointment for a maximum 6 years US attorney in KY. But as a friend of mine you all know because you read his blog says:
If you want a better country, be better citizens. VOTE.
It doesn't matter what Biden or Shumer or Pelosi or Bernie or AOC wants - THEY WON'T GET ANY OF IT BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A MAJORITY!!!!!!!!!
Simple arithmetic matters.
And to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the organization and people you've got, not the organization and people you'd want.
And they won't get a majority unless they give the people a vision of America they can believe in
Allen, if the people of America can't figure out that they don't want authoritariansim, then they are too goddamned dumb to deserve anything but what they get - like the Germans in the 30s.
And obviously that will include all of us who say we don't want it, and yet don't do everything we can to stop it. And I hate to tell you, but the Berners are fucking morons. I know. I went to some of their meetings. They do not and probably never will represent anything approaching a majority of Americans.
What do the Berners have to do with now? What do they have to do with Bernie's positions and actions?
When will you pull this one out of your Rumsfeld file?
“There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”
― Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown
Allen, I have been thinking of you and your extended family of Ukrainians. Your Blog isn't the appropriate delivery system for this. I chose Stevie Wonder to express the feeling. 🌻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YLDydokJ_s
🤬 Donald Rumsfeld 🏴☠️
Is he the best you could find?
Absolutely the case, and our only hope is that the more progressive and the younger Dems simply rebel and campaign the way they want, and dare Biden, Pelosi and the DNC to cut them off from campaign money..... The progressives, even the Squad, have done everything they can to get their agenda across, including cooperating on the BBB plan and seeing their effort shot down by the Repubs and Manchin.....Bernie would be considered a centrist in Europe, but here he had the best ideas. Our problem is that so many voters have drunk the Kool-Aid that any government actions to make peoples' lives better is "socialism" that passing even basic stuff like Medicare for All (an INSURANCE operation, NOT "socialized medicine"). Of course, you could always blow their minds by telling them the truth - the United States have had true socialized medicine for over 400 years, in the operation of the Veterans Administration. The first precursor to the VA was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620.....and in one form or another has come down to us.....
I don't necessarily want the filibuster abolished - there could be a time when it can throw sand in the Republicans' gearbox too. I would want the Norm Ornstein-Al Franken approach to the filibuster - turn it around so 1, it is a debating filibuster (only the bill in question may be debated on the floor - no reading "Green Eggs and Ham" into the Federal Register - attempting to move debate to a new subject would invoke cloture without a vote), and 2, the filibuster must be held by the minority party calling it by having 41 senators on the floor at all times. Instead of taking 60 votes to break a filibuster with a cloture vote, it requires 41 senators to keep a filibuster going. Fall below 41 senators, and the majority leader can call for a cloture vote at any time and send the bill to the full senate for a simple majority vote. A quorum for the Senate is 51 members present. If some idiot calls in a filibuster on a bill from the Senate cloakroom as sometimes happens now, and then goes home for the weekend, and the Senate majority leader then gathers 51 senators and calls a vote for cloture and if the minority party cannot muster 41 senators to hold the filibuster, they take a cloture vote before the miscreant's plane leaves the airport.....
The basic idea is that a filibuster should involve some effort by the calling party and some pain for everyone, to discourage its excessive use..... It would be more difficult for the filibuster party to hold a filibuster with 41 senators than to require 60 senators to break a filibuster. An evil feature of this approach is that the majority party need not have its full membership on the Senate floor unless the majority leader wanted to hold a vote - 2-3 senators would be sufficient to deny a quorum. The minority party by definition would not have a quorum by themselves and thus could not vote or make a motion with fewer than 51 members present. I must be in a very dark place here.....:-)
It is so good to see you, Allen. You, Tanya, family, animals and plants - hands and hearts together. 💓 🌻 🟦🟨 🦅
Important to remember, while not settling in the past and bringing the hammer down on us. Opened eyes, strong spirits, good hearts and the will to survive... and thrive. It is possible.
Yes, for instance: “However, it can clearly be seen by any researcher other than Samuel Alito, that starting in 1812, the public and elected officials turned against such use of the state legislature to choose presidential electors.”
But, TC, there must be “a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”
Rowshan, Is this your source?
There Is a Balm in Gilead
by Anonymous
Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain.
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
Refrain
There is a balm in Gilead to make the world whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.
Don't ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend,
and if you look for knowledge he'll never refuse to lend.
If you can't preach like Peter, if you can't pray like Paul,
just tell the love of Jesus, and say he died for all.
(poetrynook)
Yes, Fern, I just remembered the refrain from the Gospel song.
Excellent history. And with this Court’s self appointed role as history professor it should put them to shame.
But it won’t.
The Moore case also has more legal holes than Swiss cheese, not the least of which is the idea a state’s legislature exists separate and apart from the state itself. Or that the part of the Constitution on which they rely only references elections for the House and Senate, not the President. If they try to stretch it to Electors it should put them to shame.
But it won’t.
And there’s the rub. You know at least five Injustices (this is going to catch on, TC), intend to use Moore to allow the GQP legislatures of 30 gerrymandered states to elect the next President and lock out the Democratic Party for a generation or two,… or forever.
We can’t use shame, or history, or legal reasoning to defeat them. We need another way.
Outvote them this fall.
Ya know, when Heather Cox Richardson says if the Republicans take over the Congress in November it's all over, people should start listening. She has been a voice of reason and sanity in all this, so if she is hitting the alarm button, we be in a heap o'trouble.....
I live in NC. These Republicans are the sleaziest politicians you can imagine. They have been warring against the common good since 2011. EVERYTHING they do is with a political motive. Districts gerrymandered with surgical precision, HB2 (the bathroom bill), war on public education, legislation to remove powers from the governor, etc. This case is being thrown up against the wall to see if it will stick. They are literally making this $&@! up! They are NOT trying to protect elections in any way. These guys are the poster boys for political corruption.
I grew up in NC, moved away for 30 years for my husband’s job. We moved back because of family and this is home. I am mad as hell that these selfish jerks (Moore, et. al) are willing to endanger the entire country. This bs case is the opposite of what the founders wanted; so is the theory of the unitary executive. I am not a constitutional scholar, but I can read. This case leaves out the part about Congress being able govern elections. The sentence about state courts not being able to review this law shows their evil intent. Politics is a “game” to these R’s with power and money as the prizes. Like tRump, they only care about themselves. They are wicked.
You know how hard 'they' are on our lives and spirit as many of us do. That humans can be so small, such hard murderous balls of evil; we do not want it to be so as the wickedness grows. Along with pain, there is determination. I feel your anger. You are smart, JennSH and feisty. Our story is not all about them, it most clearly about US. Salud.
Ohhh yes! “I am not a constitutional scholar, but I can read. This case leaves out the part about Congress being able govern elections.”
Whew! I need my fan to cool me down from that sermon! :-)
GarySanDiego, Why not 'shame, shame, shame'? You might not like seeing this one. That's ok, it's for Clarence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1G6-RUz3OA
I love the Foo Fighters! So sad about Taylor Hawkins. He certainly provided the backbone for ‘Shame, Shame.”
“Americans have known since 1796 that the Constitution is not a charter for states or state legislatures. It is a charter for people, for our rights and for our right to self government.” Some of your best words, TC. I’m going to stitch them on a pillow, a very big one.
TAFMers, I have one for you and he’s called Clarence Thomas. Clarence is one of the Injustices TC refers to, but he is not one of them, Clarence is The One. ‘He is most powerful Black man in America, Thomas is also our most symptomatic public intellectual, setting out a terrifying vision of race, rights, and violence that’s fast becoming a description of everyday life. It’s no longer a matter of Clarence Thomas’s Court. Increasingly, it’s Clarence Thomas’s America.’
How do you like that? Those are the words of Robin Corey in his New Yorker article ‘The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas’. This political theorist, professor and author, knows his subject having written a book about him two years ago called The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.
We say scary a lot because this is a scary time. If you are up to entering the hall of horrors within Thomas’ chambers, I suggest that you read Corey’s article linked below. Risk the opportunity to learn ‘substantive due process’ and the 2nd Amendment in Clarence’s head.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-self-fulfilling-prophecies-of-clarence-thomas
Yes, I saved Corey's article - scary stuff, because Thomas is the de facto leader of the Court at this point. The Democratic leadership's failure to consider packing the court is political suicide under our current circumstances. Such packing would be fully justified on two counts - first, two seats on the Court were in effect stolen: Gorsuch's in Obama's administration and Barrett's in Trump's, all by Mitch McConnell doing what Mitch does best - cynically manipulating procedure to achieve his own political ends. Second, traditionally the number of Supreme Court justices has been the same as the number of U.S. Circuit Courts. There are now 13 U.S. Circuit Courts - Biden would be following precedent and tradition (thank you, Clarence) in expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices, and he would save the American Experiment for our children and future generations. How cool is that.....
… first of all on behalf of the American people and first of all, for the survival of our Democracy.
Works for me.....:-)
🌿
Indeed "the hall of horrors within Thomas’ chambers". Thanks for the link Fern. It opens up for a new world order on the scale of Putins; scary times to say the least. To understand the lunacy of gun sales in the US, the sales profits are too petty, but the revenge from afro American men out of the head of Clarence Thomas is grand enough.
Thank you for this beautifully written scholarship, TC.
but of course, they won't. and if they did, it would suck even more than things already do. which is not to say it's not tempting....I did read somewhere today (hard to keep all the sources separate) that our Democratic party most closely resembles Britain's Conservatives in terms of policy, since most Tories (with a few lunatic exceptions, supported by no majority anywhere, Brexit notwithstanding) fully accept many of the policies considered "controversial" here (universal health care, abortion rights, taxing the ultra-rich, paid family leave, etc.). anytime I've been asked to explain the Electoral College to someone who didn't understand it, I've had to quit because it's so fucking EMBARRASSING.