[Gerardo]

Chas_P, on 2022-June-23, 19:00, said:

Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a perfect example of pure, unadulterated horseshit. [snip]

what's up with the fanfare? Happens most of the time you open your mouth.

[johnu]

Winstonm, on 2022-June-21, 16:36, said:

You have noticed that these hearings have been pointed directly at those who deny or have doubts about the legitimacy of the election?

The true QOP believers aren't watching the hearings because they are watching Fox Propaganda Channel, One anti-America News, NewsMin, or just getting their news from russian bots on facebook. Fox Propaganda made the decision to lose hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars by going commercial free during the hearings so their users wouldn't be tempted to switch channels during the pillow guy's commercials.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2022-June-23, 19:00, said:

Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a perfect example of pure, unadulterated horseshit. No one claims that drunken drivers have a constitutional right to drive drunk. But (I'm pretty sure) a majority of Americans share the view that they have a constitutional right to own firearms. Don't damn the law-obiding. Damn (and punish) the criminals.

Aw! Look

*****wit is trying to change the conversation

He's retreating from his original bullshit claim and switching over to a new bullshit claim!

Nice try *****wit...

Sadly for you, some of us actually have working short term memories and we're able to remember what the actual discussion was about

[Winstonm]

I see that the Bailey and Bailey circus is in town.

On a similar note, these January 6th hearings have revealed to me something that before I sort of knew but truly didn't totally comprehend, and that is the depth and power of Trump's immense understanding and utilization of the power of perceptions. Truly, if he has a superpower that is it. His sole purpose in trying to place his own AG (Clark) into the DOJ was due Clark's assurance that he would send from the DOJ a fake letter that stated there had been fraud committed in the election and that the DOJ was investigating.

Think about that for a moment-Trump's sole goal was to create the perception of legitimacy to his Big Lie. And he was willing to discredit, possibly forever, the reputation of the United States Department of Justice in his false cause.

And the Republican Senators did not convict him in impeachment proceedings. and many Republicans still say they would vote for him again if he is the nominee or the party for president.

[PeterAlan]

With yesterday's and today's Supreme Court decisions, we're seeing just how much the US has been Trumped for decades to come (with a little help from Mitch McConnell).

[mikeh]

johnu, on 2022-June-24, 02:23, said:

The true QOP believers aren't watching the hearings because they are watching Fox Propaganda Channel, One anti-America News, NewsMin, or just getting their news from russian bots on facebook. Fox Propaganda made the decision to lose hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars by going commercial free during the hearings so their users wouldn't be tempted to switch channels during the pillow guy's commercials.

It seems clear that the Murdochs have decided to jump off of the Trump bandwagon and onto that of de Santis. Fox is now showing at least some of the hearings and some talking heads on Fox are now criticizing Trump. The WSJ has openly stated that Trump should not be the GOP nominee and has thrown its support behind de Santis

It’s been widely reported that Rupert Murdoch has never been a real fan of the Donald, but supported him because he would deliver the goods for Murdoch’s agenda. Now that he’s seen as the damaged goods he was all along, it’s time to find another tool. De Santis seems to fit that criterion.

It is amusing, in a sick way, how the plutocrat Murdoch seems to have held the same view of Trump as the plutocrat Putin seems to have held.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2022-June-24, 10:45, said:

It seems clear that the Murdochs have decided to jump off of the Trump bandwagon and onto that of de Santis. Fox is now showing at least some of the hearings and some talking heads on Fox are now criticizing Trump. The WSJ has openly stated that Trump should not be the GOP nominee and has thrown its support behind de Santis

It’s been widely reported that Rupert Murdoch has never been a real fan of the Donald, but supported him because he would deliver the goods for Murdoch’s agenda. Now that he’s seen as the damaged goods he was all along, it’s time to find another tool. De Santis seems to fit that criterion.

It is amusing, in a sick way, how the plutocrat Murdoch seems to have held the same view of Trump as the plutocrat Putin seems to have held.

It's interesting the view of Murdoch in the US. In the UK, he has 2 newspapers, the Sun - tabloid, everything everybody despises about Murdoch. The Times, broadsheet much more balanced, often with a different view on big issues to the Sun (eg Sun pro Brexit, Times pro remain at the time of the referendum, got behind Brexit after the vote).

His TV station is nothing like as biased as Fox.

[Winstonm]

I am waiting next for the SCOTUS to re-institute dueling as a cost-saving and business-friendly (think funeral directors and mortuaries) alternative to civil courts.

They have moved us back to 1850 so I see no reason why 1750 should not be the ultimate goal.

[mikeh]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-June-24, 11:37, said:

It's interesting the view of Murdoch in the US. In the UK, he has 2 newspapers, the Sun - tabloid, everything everybody despises about Murdoch. The Times, broadsheet much more balanced, often with a different view on big issues to the Sun (eg Sun pro Brexit, Times pro remain at the time of the referendum, got behind Brexit after the vote).

His TV station is nothing like as biased as Fox.

Iirc, he couldn’t legally do in the UK that which he can do in the US. Fox outright lies in the US. While the UK is currently home to a couple of right wing fringe networks, my understanding is that those networks operate under more constraints (when purporting to state facts as opposed to opinions) than their US counterparts. We have a federal body overseeing television and radio in Canada and the CRTC is, I gather, the main reason Fox has not been able to set up here.

[PassedOut]

Chas_P, on 2022-June-23, 19:00, said:

No one claims that drunken drivers have a constitutional right to drive drunk. But (I'm pretty sure) a majority of Americans share the view that they have a constitutional right to own firearms. Don't damn the law-obiding. Damn (and punish) the criminals.

Yes, criminals should be punished. But as Benjamin Franklin said in 1736:

Quote

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Punishing the shooters doesn't bring victims back to life.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-June-24, 11:54, said:

I am waiting next for the SCOTUS to re-institute dueling as a cost-saving and business-friendly (think funeral directors and mortuaries) alternative to civil courts.

They have moved us back to 1850 so I see no reason why 1750 should not be the ultimate goal.

Also there are some witches that we need to do something about. And vampires.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-June-24, 13:59, said:

Also there are some witches that we need to do something about. And vampires.

Sure, bring Hillary again.🤣

[Winstonm]

PassedOut, on 2022-June-24, 13:25, said:

Yes, criminals should be punished. But as Benjamin Franklin said in 1736:


Punishing the shooters doesn't bring victims back to life.

Wouldn’t banning military-style rifles fall under the umbrella of prevention?We no longer worry in the US about contracting small pox, not because we arrested the spreaders but because we eradicated the underlying cause of the illness, and that is prevention writ large.

[PassedOut]

Winstonm, on 2022-June-24, 15:21, said:

Wouldn’t banning military-style rifles fall under the umbrella of prevention?

It would.

[y66]

Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan said:

With sorrow — for this court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent.

[Winstonm]

The minority dissent isn’t quite accurate: the loss is the protection of the first Amendment against the establishment of a religion.

[Chas_P]

PassedOut, on 2022-June-24, 13:25, said:

Yes, criminals should be punished. But as Benjamin Franklin said in 1736:


Punishing the shooters doesn't bring victims back to life.

Agreed wholeheartedly. And if we can come up with a way to take firearms out of the hands of the criminally insane I'm all for it. But I just don't think the NRA is complicit in the current wave of gun violence which was Winston's assertion.

[y66]

Blake Hounshell at NYT said:

https://messaging-cu...896ed87b2d9c72a

Few can imagine it today, but on the eve of the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, more Republicans than Democrats supported decriminalizing abortion.

That nugget comes from a fascinating new work of historical, legal and political analysis published recently in The Yale Law Journal by Linda Greenhouse, a former Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times and frequent contributing Opinion writer who now teaches at Yale Law School.

The paper, which Greenhouse wrote with Reva B. Siegel, a law professor and colleague in New Haven, draws upon and updates the second edition of their book on the same subject.

Greenhouse and Siegel tell the story of how G.O.P. strategists in the early 1970s decided that the party could attract new Republican voters by making a play to Catholics and evangelicals centered on abortion.

It took about 10 years for this new political coalition to coalesce along with the rise of Ronald Reagan, they write — powered by the emerging alliance between evangelical Christians and Catholics.

In one especially revealing passage, they point out how George Gallup, the pioneering pollster, noted in a column published in The Washington Post on Aug. 25, 1972 — nearly five months before the court published its ruling in the Roe case — that 64 percent of Americans, and 56 percent of Catholics, agreed with the statement “the decision to have an abortion should be made solely by a woman and her physician.”

At 68 percent, a greater proportion of Republicans agreed with that statement than did Democrats, at 59 percent, Gallup added.

Today, those figures look very different. According to Gallup Organization polling released early this month: 58 percent of Republicans supported overturning Roe, a record high, versus 15 percent of Democrats.

Greenhouse stumbled across a clipping of George Gallup’s column among Justice Harry Blackmun’s court papers while working on a series for The Times, which later became the basis for a biography she wrote on the liberal judge’s life and influence on the bench.

Blackmun, of course, was the primary author of the Roe decision, the fall of which on Friday set off political shock waves.

Greenhouse said she didn’t know why Blackmun’s papers contained the poll.

“But what I assume it underscored for him at that time,” she said, “was that abortion was not a supercharged issue.”

“Every Republican president since Reagan has run on a platform of choosing those judges and justices who would vote to overturn Roe,” Greenhouse said.

[y66]

Adam Liptak at NYT said:

WASHINGTON — In the most important case of his 17-year tenure, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. found himself entirely alone.

He had worked for seven months to persuade his colleagues to join him in merely chipping away at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. But he was outflanked by the five justices to his right, who instead reduced Roe to rubble.

In the process, they humiliated the nominal leader of the court and rejected major elements of his jurisprudence.

The moment was a turning point for the chief justice. Just two years ago, after the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy made him the new swing justice, he commanded a kind of influence that sent experts hunting for historical comparisons. Not since 1937 had the chief justice also been the court’s fulcrum, able to cast the decisive vote in closely divided cases.

Chief Justice Roberts mostly used that power to nudge the court to the right in measured steps, understanding himself to be the custodian of the court’s prestige and authority. He avoided what he called jolts to the legal system, and he tried to decide cases narrowly.

But that was before a crucial switch. When Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative appointed by President Donald J. Trump, succeeded Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon, after her death in 2020, Chief Justice Roberts’s power fizzled.

“This is no longer John Roberts’s court,” Mary Ziegler, a law professor and historian at the University of California, Davis, said on Friday.

The chief justice is now in many ways a marginal figure. The five other conservatives are impatient and ambitious, and they do not need his vote to achieve their goals. Voting with the court’s three liberals cannot be a particularly appealing alternative for the chief justice, not least because it generally means losing.

Chief Justice Roberts’s concurring opinion in Friday’s decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, illustrated his present and perhaps future unhappy lot. He had tried for seven months to persuade a single colleague to join his incremental approach in the case, starting with carefully planned questioning when the case was argued in December. He failed utterly.

[y66]

Senator Susan Collins said:

Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger and a further loss of confidence in our government.