The Democrat Thread

[Jenksismyhero]

Link

 

And you don't think that has something to do with the nature of the star decisis system? That after 150 years of interpreting the Constitution there's going to be some more narrow questions about the law as applied to more specific facts?

 

I'm sure the number of decisions per year has greatly increased over time too.

[StrangeSox]

Of course that fact is not going to be openly celebrated...we'd all like to think that the highest court is composed of only the most objective collection of wise individuals possible...

 

Of course, as Jenks said, FDR tried to add two Justices (and thus amend the Constitution) just so he could get a Democratic majority back in the Court....

 

The open antagonism from both sides of the FDR-era courts makes today look timid.

[Jenksismyhero]

I also love that your source (a blog) uses the Kagan confirmation as proof of hyperpartisanship (i.e., those damn conservatives are ruining everything) in the Court. Again, as if this is something new. Go look at the wiki page for the Supreme Court and check out the confirmation voting for each current justice. Thomas and Alito had more difficult times getting confirmed than either of the two new "liberal" judges.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court...e_United_States

Edited April 4, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[Balta1701]

I also love that your source (a blog) uses the Kagan confirmation as proof of hyperpartisanship (i.e., those damn conservatives are ruining everything) in the Court. Again, as if this is something new. Go look at the wiki page for the Supreme Court and check out the confirmation voting for each current justice. Thomas and Alito had more difficult times getting confirmed than either of the two new "liberal" judges.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court...e_United_States

I'm sure this would have nothing to do with that. (Same article I just cited).

Conservative appellate judge Richard Posner, along with his University of Chicago law school colleague William Landes, underscored this point in a 2009 study. They ranked all 43 Supreme Court justices from 1937 to 2006 by ideology. None of the current liberal judges ranked among the five most liberal members of the court. Only Ruth Bader Ginsburg ranked among the top ten most liberal justices. By comparison, four of the five most conservative judges are currently on the court. Anthony Kennedy, traditionally considered the swing vote on today's court, was ranked as the tenth most conservative judge.

[StrangeSox]

But you cited a blog!

 

edit: I wouldn't even call RCP a blog, anyway. They're typically linking to articles written by well-known journalists and pundits.

Edited April 4, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm sure this would have nothing to do with that. (Same article I just cited).

 

And I think it was SS that cited a study a while back that showed the most "extreme" politically biased justices were the 1970's liberals. So what's your point? The pendulum is swinging the other way, as it always does.

[StrangeSox]

And I think it was SS that cited a study a while back that showed the most "extreme" politically biased justices were the 1970's liberals. So what's your point? The pendulum is swinging the other way, as it always does.

 

You called that study a pile of s*** or something similar, don't rely on it now.

[Jenksismyhero]

You called that study a pile of s*** or something similar, don't rely on it now.

 

I said it was a piece of s*** as to your point, because it showed that justices have been even more extreme in the past - the same point i'm making now.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[farmteam]

Link

 

Doesn't this not only reaffirm Jenks' estimate of decisions that are not decided by one vote (75-80%), but also shows that the increase started under FDR? Yes, it continued to increase under Rehnquist and Roberts, but it started under FDR (who, as others have mentioned tried to amend the constitution to get more judges to his favor).

[Balta1701]

Inside the protest area at the GOP Convention in Tampa, a lot of things have been banned. You can't bring in a super soaker, you can't bring in something that could be used as a club, you can't bring in things that could be flammable. All seemingly logical things to ban from a protest area outside a convention.

 

 

You know what you can bring? Guns.

 

Florida law says you can't ban people from carrying concealed weapons if they have a permit. So, unless something changes, people will be legally armed inside the free speech zones at the GOP convention.

 

And they have the right to stand their ground too.

[farmteam]

Inside the protest area at the GOP Convention in Tampa, a lot of things have been banned. You can't bring in a super soaker, you can't bring in something that could be used as a club, you can't bring in things that could be flammable. All seemingly logical things to ban from a protest area outside a convention.

 

 

You know what you can bring? Guns.

 

Florida law says you can't ban people from carrying concealed weapons if they have a permit. So, unless something changes, people will be legally armed inside the free speech zones at the GOP convention.

 

And they have the right to stand their ground too.

 

What's your specific issue with this? The State for having those laws, or at least not specially exempting the GOP convention? The GOP for adhering to them? The GOP for banning "lesser" items (super soakers, anything as a club, etc.)?

 

Unless there was some drastic change in law between when they decided to have the convention there and when it will actually be held, they knew (or should have known) about the concealed weapons law, and planned accordingly.

[Balta1701]

What's your specific issue with this? The State for having those laws, or at least not specially exempting the GOP convention? The GOP for adhering to them? The GOP for banning "lesser" items (super soakers, anything as a club, etc.)?

 

Unless there was some drastic change in law between when they decided to have the convention there and when it will actually be held, they knew (or should have known) about the concealed weapons law, and planned accordingly.

The state for having those laws in the first place. If "The protest zone at a national political convention" isn't a good place for everyone to be armed to the teeth (it isn't), then that's not the only place where people shouldn't be armed. That one's just much more ironic, since the people who voted for that silly law will be walking past those protest zones to get into the convention.

[Balta1701]

This had to be put somewhere.

Current terminated Keith Olbermann last Thursday (announced Friday) for serial, material breaches of his contract, including the failure to show up at work, sabotaging the network and attacking Current and its executives. As the old adage says: "When the law is on your side, you argue the law. When the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. When neither the law nor the facts are on your side, you pound the table.² We will be happy to engage on the law and the facts in the appropriate forum. It is well established that over his professional career Mr. Olbermann has specialized in pounding the table. However, Mr. Olbermann, by filing his false and malicious lawsuit, has now put this matter into a legal process where there will be an objective review of the facts. We hope Mr. Olbermann understands that when it comes to the legal process, he is actually required to show up.

[StrangeSox]

It's pretty shocking to see something so openly, disgustingly racist.

 

It's coming from John Derbyshire, a frequent contributor to the National Review. But anyone talking about institutional racism are just a bunch of reverse-racist "race baiters" playing the race card.

[StrangeSox]

Well you can throw open embrace of sexist discrimination on top of that from Erik Ericson

 

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/06/cnn-...sta-bans-women/

 

“I would love to be a member of Augusta National one day after I get my private jet, but at the same time I don’t really care. And I don’t care that the Masters is a male-dominated event. I don’t care that women aren’t members of the Masters. Frankly, I kind of like the idea that women aren’t members of the Masters. Good lord, I don’t want to hang out at some women’s event.”

 

 

[farmteam]

It's pretty shocking to see something so openly, disgustingly racist.

Wow. That's pretty ridiculous.

[StrangeSox]

Scott Walker repeals Equal Pay Laws.

 

What war on women????

[Balta1701]

It's pretty shocking to see something so openly, disgustingly racist.

 

It's coming from John Derbyshire, a frequent contributor to the National Review. But anyone talking about institutional racism are just a bunch of reverse-racist "race baiters" playing the race card.

Wow, NRO actually fired him. 1960's NRO is so disappointed in today's NRO.

[mr_genius]

Wow, NRO actually fired him. 1960's NRO is so disappointed in today's NRO.

 

dude it was just NR in 1960 not NRO. no internets yet.

[StrangeSox]

Wow, NRO actually fired him. 1960's NRO is so disappointed in today's NRO.

 

NRO: Open racism bad, open pedophilia okay.

[Balta1701]

NRO: Open racism bad, open pedophilia okay.

Do I not get the reference? Is one of their writers an accused pedophile? Or is this a catholic church thing?

[StrangeSox]

Do I not get the reference? Is one of their writers an accused pedophile? Or is this a catholic church thing?

 

Well, now-former writer. Derbyshire opined on the peak sexuality of women being between ages 15-20 years ago, but it wasn't enough for him to get fired.

 

...the human female is visually attractive to the human male at, or shortly after, puberty, and for only a few brief years thereafter.

 

...

 

Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston's bristols?** No, I didn't. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.

 

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20.

 

 

lol and apparently he said this at a lecture to black law students a couple of years ago:

 

Our species separated into two parts 50, 60, or 70 thousand years ago, depending on which paleoanthropologist you ask. One part remained in Africa, the ancestral homeland. The other crossed into Southwest Asia, then split, and re-split, and re-split, until there were human populations living in near-total reproductive isolation from each other in all parts of the world. This went on for hundreds of generations, causing the divergences we see today. Different physical types, as well as differences in behavior, intelligence, and personality, are exactly what one would expect to observe when scrutinizing these divergent populations.

 

Now, the empirical grounds. We all notice the different physical specialties of the different races in the Olympic Games. There was a run of, I think, seven Olympics in which every one of the finalists in the men’s 100 meters sprint was of West African ancestry — 56 out of 56 finalists. You get less pronounced but similar patterns in other sports — East African distance runners, Northeast Asian divers, and so on. These differences even show up within sports, where a team sport calls for highly differentiated abilities in team members — football being the obvious example.

 

We see the same differences in traits that we don’t think of as directly physical, what evolutionary psychologists sometimes refer to as the “BIP” traits — behavior, intelligence, and personality. Two of the hardest-to-ignore manifestations here are the extraordinary differentials in criminality between white Americans and African Americans, and the persistent gaps in scores when tests of cognitive ability are given to large population samples.

 

So open racism was cool with NRO until this latest incident for some reason.

 

But as you hinted at before, National Review has been cool with open racism from the start.

Edited April 8, 2012 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Wow, NRO actually fired him. 1960's NRO is so disappointed in today's NRO.

 

parts of the right-wing blogosphere are sadly/predictably defending him

 

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared...h_an.php?page=2

[StrangeSox]

Chris Christie lied about the costs of the tunnel he shut down:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/nyregion...in-2010.html?hp

The report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.

 

Mr. Christie also misstated New Jersey’s share of the costs: he said the state would pay 70 percent of the project; the report found that New Jersey was paying 14.4 percent. And while the governor said that an agreement with the federal government would require the state to pay all cost overruns, the report found that there was no final agreement, and that the federal government had made several offers to share those costs

[Reddy]

what all this recent news highlights is that republicans are, indeed, horrible.