President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Thanks Sen. Feinstein.

 

Really pig news

Supreme Court rejects challenge to California pork law mandating more space for pigs

 

Space for pigs?

 

I think I read a "Death of Bacon" story or somesuch in the New Yorker a couple of years back when this law was passed.

 

Caught most of the second half of a show about Clarence and Ginni Thomas on Frontline last night. One of the commentators said we’re in the early phase of what might become known as the Thomas Court with Justice Thomas as the real leader of an aggressively activist conservative court with little regard for precedent.

I think the extreme right has played a pretty hardball disciplined long game and are reaping the power of their success. It seems to me that the Democratic Party didn’t have the tenacity or ruthlessness to hold out, be it in Ginsburg’s holding the judgeship too long or Obama’s reluctance to force Garland through by any means necessary.

Continuing with Sen. Feinstein’s seeming lack of determination to put the confirmation of federal judges at the highest priority and Democrats appear a bit feckless in bolstering a more progressive stance in the courts and are unwilling to bust heads to gain the opportunity to make lasting changes.

 

I'd call it the Alito court myself - Alito seems to have more sway over the other justices and the legal chops to give his opinions some context. Roberts has totally lost the rest of the righties. Thomas seems to be someone who decides which side he is on and then figures out a reason why.

In some ways, the Dems feel like they will get "credit" for doing the "right thing" (honoring the filibuster, hewing to political norms, not going scorched earth etc) and perhaps they do by "the media" but it doesn't seem to be winning over any of those independent moderates the party seems to lust after, election after election.

 

Democrats need to learn how to step on throats and crush windpipes. I know, I know, not so easy. LBJ got the Civil Rights Act through Congress. From what I’ve read, that involved significant arm-twisting. It was only 2009 when Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Next time they get it, and they will because this is all cyclical and parties evolve, they need to be a helluva lot more aggressive in using it.

 

I agree. This is more than a simple ageism argument. There are impairments and problems -- whatever they result from -- that are impacting an important public-service and constituent-impacting job.

If she were able to do her job, nobody would be worrying about her being aged. It's the infirm part that is the issue.

 

Hope it was worth it

 

I think as mostly traditional journalists on here, we all get your question, Sam. And we agree in principle with the sentiment.

But, unfortunately, and actually, this is one of the ways in which news and media outlets have changed the most in recent years: They are, in fact, out to make news, generate news, draw the most eyes and clicks, etc., and they have, in fact, become more actively involved in actually garnering them. Technology and the current media landscape has changed things, and survival seems oftentimes to depend on media members and outlets doing it.

 

They don't have it in them. Some of these individuals have been bullied hard in their lives and it shows.

 

Television privileges the liar.