Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#321

Post by tyre » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

anonAndOn wrote: post #289

tyre wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t see Dems doing that. They don’t have the popular support for something like that, let alone the courage. What they should do is physically barricade the Capitol. I’m not really joking. It will come to that. My first guess of the most action they will take: Staging a walk-out of the vote.

I think we're about to see some of the more arcane rules of debate in the Senate take center stage: repeated quorum calls, filibuster, cloture, etc. I suspect this will not go down without a fight.

Filibuster was abolished for SCOTUS nominations.

There was nothing procedurally that Democrats could have done to stop Kavanaugh. If there were, they would have.

They cannot stop this nomination by traditional means.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#322

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

op03 wrote: post #188

Remove the Publicly visible Like Count and those kind of conversations and connections are easy. The Like count makes people defensive or aggressive especially when they are called out in public leading to never ending reaction and counter reaction cycles. Without that dumb random signal interfering in conversations all kinds of strange connections are possible. I see it at work meetings between highly competitive pe…

People were horrible to each other online long before modern social media, and indeed in print and in person long before that. While some people do indeed pursue likes for their own sake, it's not the root cause of social aggression.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#323

Post by tootie » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

Kattywumpus wrote: post #130

If Trump and the Republicans confirm a new Justice, Democrats have indicated they will pack the Supreme Court, appointing as many Justices as they feel necessary to get the rulings they want. "If they show that they're unwilling to respect precedent, rules and history, then they can't feign surprise when others talk about using a statutory option that we have that's fully constitutional in our availability," he said.…

Tell that to Merrick Garland.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#324

Post by empthought » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

jcheng wrote: post #300

kwhat4 wrote: post #260

The republicans know how to win, and will do so by any means necessary. The democrats seem happy taking the high road to yet another humiliating defeat. This is why I'm done voting and pretending it makes a difference.

The Democrats have literally lost ONE presidential election in a row

And they lost it by winning 2.5 million more votes than the Republicans.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#325

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #149

mhh__ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do not give a fuck Something that the Democrats need to realize is that they (especially Obama) assumed too much good faith in the congressional GOP. You can stick to your principles while doing it but, when you are against a party who now considers its last nominee (Romney) a radical BLM leftist, when they go low you need to be ready to kick them in the head.

Precisely. There is a desire, specifically and especially on the left, to get so caught up in their principles that people believe it is the primary source of change. For example: What should be the first acts and priorities be of a democratic administration? Healthcare? Nope. Climate change? Nope. A federal holiday for election days? Yes. Passing legislation mandating mail-in ballots? Yes. That’s how you think about…

Gerrymandering is at the top of my list. Solve that problem and it is easier to attack the other problems.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#326

Post by bleepblorp » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #88

bleepblorp wrote: post #41

I think we can all be certain that whoever is appointed by the Federalist Society and approved by Mitch McConnell will make sure Trump wins a second (or third, or fourth, or fifth) term. The American experiment as a free and democratic country is over. Unless you want to live in a real world version of The Handmaid's Tale, get the fsck out if you still can.

Stop with these kind of comments. Do you honestly think the Supreme Court would allow a President to win a 3rd term? “We can all be certain” should be translated to “I feel like making a crazy rant here”. “Experiment is over” - the election is in 7 weeks, let’s hold off on the “get out while you can” comments until it’s over. How confident are you in your statement that the “American experiment is over”? Care to bet…

Understanding how modern societies fail was my professional field.

The United States is following in the footsteps of many countries that transitioned from democracy to authoritarianism. The judiciary was the last remaining bulwark that had been slightly slowing the erosion of democratic rights. With the judicial balance of power now in the hands of a president who has both taken steps to conduct an unfair election and has repeatedly expressed desires for extra-constitutional powers, it is naive in the extreme to imagine that American democracy is not mortally wounded.

America is turning itself into a cross between apartheid-era South Africa and Putin's Russia. While Trump has accelerated this trend, it is a trend far larger than him and it will not be stopped even if Biden somehow becomes the next president. Even if there is a Biden victory and some solution in the Senate, there must be no doubt that a 6-3 GOP USSC will overturn any pro-democratic, or anti-authoritarian, reforms that might be approved by Congress.

I reiterate, the alarm bells are ringing for America as a free society and it is time for anyone who doesn't want to live in The Handmaid's Tale to get out because things aren't going to get any better.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#327

Post by nerdponx » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #149

mhh__ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do not give a fuck Something that the Democrats need to realize is that they (especially Obama) assumed too much good faith in the congressional GOP. You can stick to your principles while doing it but, when you are against a party who now considers its last nominee (Romney) a radical BLM leftist, when they go low you need to be ready to kick them in the head.

Precisely. There is a desire, specifically and especially on the left, to get so caught up in their principles that people believe it is the primary source of change. For example: What should be the first acts and priorities be of a democratic administration? Healthcare? Nope. Climate change? Nope. A federal holiday for election days? Yes. Passing legislation mandating mail-in ballots? Yes. That’s how you think about…

Democrats have popular support for their policies but cannot for the life of them think strategically.

You think they don't understand this stuff? Democrats have been deliberately "failing" to get shit done for 20 years. They keep holding out progressive and populist policies, tantalizingly close to enacting meaningful change -- but nope, somehow it always seems to be a matter of political strategy, badly run campaigns, and bad messaging that derails things.

Surely the Republicans haven't somehow had the better political strategists for decades. They aren't always better funded and they aren't always better organized. And certainly they don't have access to some kind of magic politics potion that the Democrats lack.

The only plausible scenario that I can see is that the Democratic party leadership has no interest in actually getting policy enacted, as long as they keep their cozy niche in power. Another 4 years of Trump will help them do very well in the 2022 midterms, and it will help keep their friends at the NYT, CNN, and MSNBC in business.

It would also explain why they hated Sanders and the DSA candidates so much. Liberals (not to mention leftists) who actually wanted to take power at the national level and actually do something? That would fuck up the whole game.

Basically you'd have to show me some actual evidence that Democratic party leadership actually wants to do anything other than campaign on a progressive platform and consistently almost-win. The whole thing seems worked to me.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#328

Post by tick_tock_tick » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

stock_toaster wrote: post #72

bsimpson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McConnell is pretty transparent about his hypocritical political bullshit: > "Oh, we’d fill it,” McConnell told supporters in Kentucky on Tuesday when asked what he would do if a Supreme Court justice died in 2020 while President Trump was still in office > https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/29/oh-wed-fi... edit: Am I really getting downvoted for pointing out how the current administration already said i…

McConnell has done more harm to the USA than any other politician I can think of in recent memory.

Harry Reid, he's the one that ruined congress by changing the rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#329

Post by tmountain » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #185

tyre wrote: post #86

For every one of the coming takes that Republicans will be hypocrites to appoint and confirm a justice (which they will) They do not give a fuck. That’s not how they see power and it is why they have a far disproportionate share of power/representation than their support across the electorate. This is about power. In politics, nothing else matters.

Then it's time to fight back. Make it absolutely clear to McConnell and Democratic leaders in the Senate that if McConnell fills this seat in an election year, then the Democrats must increase the size of the SCOTUS. McConnell needs to fear the reprisal more than he fears the delay. Because you're right, this is about power. Nothing else matters to them. So make them fear this.

You can expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court via a bill passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president. So we'd need the presidency, a majority in the House, and a supermajority in the Senate to invoke cloture to end the inevitable legislative filibuster from the Republicans. So even with a blue wave in November, that's not possible because it is extraordinarily unlikely that we gain a supermajority in the Senate.

The only other option to pass such a bill in the Senate would be to gain a Senate majority and use that Senate majority to end the legislative filibuster, which is the last filibuster anyways. With the filibuster out of the way, we'd just need the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress.

Re: Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died

#330

Post by nsajko » Sat, Sep 19, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

rezendi wrote: post #151

Kattywumpus wrote: post #130

If Trump and the Republicans confirm a new Justice, Democrats have indicated they will pack the Supreme Court, appointing as many Justices as they feel necessary to get the rulings they want. "If they show that they're unwilling to respect precedent, rules and history, then they can't feign surprise when others talk about using a statutory option that we have that's fully constitutional in our availability," he said.…

This is amusingly silly. Changing the composition of the Court is not unheard of and FDR, not exactly known as the poster child of "destroying the legitimacy of Constitutional government," nearly did it in 1937 (and likely would have if not for another untimely death.) https://today.law.harvard.edu/if-democrats-win-in-november-s...

Consider Maduro (Venezuela). He and his government are enduring all kinds of enormous attacks from all around the ("Western") world and horrible malicious interference by USA, but the only thing that we know of that Maduro's side did wrong (arguably) was packing the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.