US Politics

Pennsylvania GOP Moves To Impeach Supreme Court Democrats For Gerrymandering Ruling
A Republican leading the impeachment drive says it's about separation of powers.
A dozen GOP Pennsylvania lawmakers filed legislation on Tuesday to impeach four Democratic state Supreme Court justices who ruled the state’s congressional map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered and replaced it with a new one.

The Republicans moved to impeach Justices David Wecht, Christine Donahue, Kevin Dougherty and Debra McCloskey Todd, all Democrats who found the state’s congressional map was designed to favor Republicans and must be replaced before the May primary. Justice Max Baer (D), who also voted to strike down the map, but said it could remain in place until 2020, wasn’t mentioned in the impeachment resolutions.
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https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5ab16875e4b0decad044dee0/amp
 
Raoul said:
Progressives, despite being very loud on social media, don't seem to be faring particularly well where it actually counts.
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I think that's a tad harsh as it was keenly contested, but despite being backed by Emily's list etc, Dan Lipinski won. It's a tough choice for the Dems whether to support or ditch the blue dogs of the party. What do you think @Eboue and @berbatrick, should a socially conservative Democrat be given a chance to run? All good news in Illinois but Lipinski still hangs on like a cloud.
 
fishfingers15 said:
I think that's a tad harsh as it was keenly contested, but despite being backed by Emily's list etc, Dan Lipinski won. It's a tough choice for the Dems whether to support or ditch the blue dogs of the party. What do you think @Eboue and @berbatrick, should a socially conservative Democrat be given a chance to run? All good news in Illinois but Lipinski still hangs on like a cloud.
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I agree, but my point is that there has been no discernable move to the progressive side amongst the power structure or base of the Dem party from 2016. Most districts that are contested later this year are seen as having moved to the left leaning by the pundits, but that is likely a result of anti-Trump sentiment than a tangible Bernie Sanders style, policy based move to the left.

As for your question about whether Blue Dogs should be able to run, they have the same right to run as progressives do. The Dems are looking for more Conor Lamb's around the country to win elections in districts where there is a constituency to support such candidacies.
 
fcbforever said:
That would be huge, but it’s still a few month, so I wouldn’t read too much into it.
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Yeah not sure how much to read into this one, but Tennessee is generally a very red state over the past couple of decades, so this would seem to be a reflection of anti-Trump sentiment. Would be a massive humiliation for the Repubs if they lost this seat.
 
fishfingers15 said:
I think that's a tad harsh as it was keenly contested, but despite being backed by Emily's list etc, Dan Lipinski won. It's a tough choice for the Dems whether to support or ditch the blue dogs of the party. What do you think @Eboue and @berbatrick, should a socially conservative Democrat be given a chance to run? All good news in Illinois but Lipinski still hangs on like a cloud.
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I think we ought to back the most progressive candidate that can win. There is no evidence of the Democrat party doing so because the people who hold positions of power in the Democratic party exist to maintain the power of said people and the consultants and pollsters attached to the party power structure.

Its not a political party in the traditional sense with interest groups and constituencies within it. Labor, immigrants, environmental advocacy, anti war, etc. These are all groups that would make up a true left wing party and be the power base behind it. But since this is a two party system and democrats are one of those two parties, the actual Democratic base is people who are repulsed by republican policies while the Democratic party is run by technocrats and wonks who believe in mostly the same things as republicans except they aren't as overtly mean to minorities.

A truly left wing party wouldn't be putting a drug warrior up for the state of the union response. A truly left wing party wouldn't have nominated a billionaire heir as governor in a blue state. A truly left wing party wouldn't have joined republicans to oppose restrictions on helping the Saudis commit massacres in yemen. A truly left wing party wouldn't have voted with republicans to deregulate banks.

So what are actual progressives and leftists to do in a two party system with two right wing parties? I don't think there is a good answer. But I think it's entirely reasonable to not vote Democrat when the democrats don't actually represent you or listen to you or care about you. I think we have a responsibility to criticize centrists and right wing democrats every chance we get and hold them accountable. I don't know what other options there are.
 
fishfingers15 said:
I think that's a tad harsh as it was keenly contested, but despite being backed by Emily's list etc, Dan Lipinski won. It's a tough choice for the Dems whether to support or ditch the blue dogs of the party. What do you think @Eboue and @berbatrick, should a socially conservative Democrat be given a chance to run? All good news in Illinois but Lipinski still hangs on like a cloud.
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TBF Lipinski did still have DCCC backing, and in Chicago that means a lot of infrastructure support. And his strategy in the (open) primary was to ask for GOP support (since the actual GOP candidate was a literal Nazi). So it was quite a difficult fight. He had the name and the organisation.
I'm quite disappointed still, since
1. this was a district Bernie won over HRC in 2016
2. she had several high-profile endorsements

In general youth turnout was really bad, unlike in (say) 2017 Virginia. That's probably a failure of progressive groups on the ground.
 
berbatrick said:
TBF Lipinski did still have DCCC backing, and in Chicago that means a lot of infrastructure support. And his strategy in the (open) primary was to ask for GOP support (since the actual GOP candidate was a literal Nazi). So it was quite a difficult fight. He had the name and the organisation.
I'm quite disappointed still, since
1. this was a district Bernie won over HRC in 2016
2. she had several high-profile endorsements

In general youth turnout was really bad, unlike in (say) 2017 Virginia. That's probably a failure of progressive groups on the ground.
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He got DCCC backing only in name, but they actively kept a safe distance from him. Obama coalition in Illinois actively campaigned against him and wanted to see him fail due to Lipinski's failure to back Obamacare. It's a mighty big stretch to say he got infrastructure support. I work at Oak Brook and live in Lisle and I'm within 5 miles to the 3rd congressional district. As you rightly point out, she got high profile endorsements. If a progressive candidate can't win a solid blue district against a social conservative Dem, it further creates doubts. Already it seems like an awkward situation for DCCC and other groups to get behind Lipinski. It further gives bargaining power to the blue dogs of the party.
 
A fecking Nazi. In the self-proclaimed family values party. Every democrat from coast to coast should run ads that the GOP opposition allows Nazis to run on their ticket.
 


Wasn’t sure where to put it but fair play to her.
 
Pexbo said:


Wasn’t sure where to put it but fair play to her.
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I've read that she works in Hollywood and she might be a secret Liberal. Whether or not the latter is true, she's probably on more sane ground than her father.
 
Raoul said:
Can't wait til these cnuts are voted out in November

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The level of insularity of the ignorance of someone with the thickest of southern drawls proclaiming that it's refreshing that someone doesn't have an accent would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing.
 
Charges have been dropped against 11 of the 15 members of Turkish President Recep Erodgan’s security team who were accused of beating protesters during a visit to Washington, D.C. last year. The brutal attack last May sent nine people to hospitals, and was widely condemned by U.S. authorities and caused a diplomatic rift between the two countries. Charges were dropped against four individuals in November, and then against seven others on Feb. 14—the day before then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flew to Ankara for talks with Erdogan.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/charges-dropped-against-turkish-officers-from-dc-brawl
 
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-the-legacy-of-the-iraq-war-w518193

We've defanged popular opposition by making such bombings open-ended, mechanical and invisible. The invisibility is not just in the eyes of the media, but more and more, in the eyes of the law as well. Our wars have begun to vanish from our legal process, the same way our "enemy combatants" just magically disappear from the earth once captured, to a secret arbitrary world we show or don't show as we please.

The legal disappearing trick evolved over several presidencies, and particularly advanced under Barack Obama, under whose leadership a remarkable progression took place.

The Obama White House for years wrung its hands publicly about the justification for drone assassination. When in September of 2011 it killed by drone in Yemen a cleric named Anwar al-Aulaqi, who was born in New Mexico, the administration foolishly felt a need at first to try to articulate a legal reason for killing an American without trial.

"What constitutes due process in this case is due process in war," a White House official said, alluding to a Justice Department memorandum that apparently existed to provide a legal context for killing even American citizens by fiat.

But the position of the state evolved. Soon, rather than bother sharing with the public what justification may or may not exist for these programs, the government moved to a new policy of simply asserting that these operations are classified and therefore not an issue, legally speaking.

When the ACLU asked under the Freedom of Information Act for documents pertaining to the drone killings, the CIA replied that the "fact of the existence or nonexistence" of the program was secret. So, they said, go screw.

The ACLU sued, saying that then-CIA chief Leon Panetta obviated the secrecy by talking about "hits" and "strikes." But a federal judge sided with the state,saying Panetta "never acknowledged the CIA's involvement in such [a] program."

A few years later we discovered that the authorities had unilaterally green-lit a sweeping surveillance program here at home, capturing the phone conversations and emails of millions of Americans without our consent or knowledge, presumably out of concern for this threat.

We found this out by accident, after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked the news on his way into permanent exile. This was after senior intelligence officials like current liberal hero James Clapper openly lied to congress about the existence of the vast extralegal spy regime.

This is the legacy of the Iraq war. It began with a crude congressional dog-and-pony show giving Bush approval for the invasion, and was followed by an equally thin presentation to the U.N. by sad-sack Colin Powell. These two transparently stupid pre-war petitions secured for the war the tiniest of fig-leafs of domestic and international legal legitimacy.

A decade and a half later, authorities no longer need to ask anyone permission to do anything. They've created in the interim an entirely separate, secret set of rules giving them the right to kill, imprison, torture, or spy on anyone.

A permanent war bureaucracy, invisible beyond the executive branch.
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Raoul said:
Can't wait til these cnuts are voted out in November

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I always find it strange when some people (only seen this in the US) tell others that they have an accent. Don't they realise that everyone has an accent? My Aussie friend was told that she has an accent. I was told once that I have an accent. English is from England and there are numerous accents in England.

Do they not realise that other people think that they have accents as well? But no, they are normal and everyone else is "different".
 
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Nikhil said:
I always find it strange when some people (only seen this in the US) tell others that they have an accent. Don't they realise that everyone has a language? My Aussie friend was told that she has an accent. I was told once that I have an accent. English is from England and there are numerous accents in England.

Do they not realise that other people think that they have accents as well? But no, they are normal and everyone else is "different".
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If a person thinks their accent is the center of the accent Universe then obviously other accents will see odd to them. In this case, you have some hick Congressman from Bama who thinks anyone who doesn't talk like Gomer Pyle sounds foreign.
 
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/jo...ca-make-facebook-users-less-limp-wristed-war/

New information from Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has revealed that incoming national security adviser John Bolton’s super PAC tried to use data on Facebook users to make people more willing to support backing wars.

In an interview with the New York Times, Wylie says that Bolton’s PAC was alarmed by polling trends showing that more and more Americans viewed war unfavorably — and it wanted to construct an advertising campaign aimed at reversing those views.
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So evil that he's a one-man Great Satan :lol:
 
FFS, what does Bolton gain from constant warmongering?

Just another type that wants to see the world burn?

Has vested interest in a few defense contractor stock?
 
MrMarcello said:
FFS, what does Bolton gain from constant warmongering?

Just another type that wants to see the world burn?

Has vested interest in a few defense contractor stock?
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Probably invested in Carlyle Group together with the Bush family and Cheney.
 
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