The Democrat Thread

[bmags]

Robert Bork, often held as a martyr in conservative circles, has a confession in his post-humous memoir that Richard Nixon offered him a spot on Supreme Court if he acted on Nixons demands on the Saturday Night Massacre. He did.

[StrangeSox]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412...2879185934.html

Mr. Monti's government of technocrats took power and passed tax hikes and spending cuts that pulled Italy back from the brink of the euro-zone debt crisis. But the austerity dragged Italy's already-ailing economy into a further slump, pushing up unemployment and forcing people to rely increasingly on their families for homes and funds. Italy's debt, meanwhile, continues to be 127% of gross domestic product, meaning that more austerity is likely needed.

 

Mr. Monti saved Italy by austerity! But wait, it didn't work, it made the economy worse, unemployment rise and didn't actually reduce their debt. There's no plausible model that says the economy was going to collapse even worse without the austerity. So that means they need more austerity!

[StrangeSox]

Robert Bork, often held as a martyr in conservative circles, has a confession in his post-humous memoir that Richard Nixon offered him a spot on Supreme Court if he acted on Nixons demands on the Saturday Night Massacre. He did.

Robert Bork was "Borked" by having his stated and written opinions recited back to him accurately.

[bmags]

Robert Bork was "Borked" by having his stated and written opinions recited back to him accurately.

 

That and showing that he rented porn at a video store. Which was ridiculous.

[bmags]

That and showing that he rented porn at a video store. Which was ridiculous.

 

Turns out there was no porn. I specifically remember a professor saying that happened. Or maybe I just assumed any rental history would include such.

[StrangeSox]

The Supreme Court dismissed a case yesterday over the constitutionality of the FISA wiretapping. Because the program is secret, the respondents can't actually show that they have been harmed, so the Court, in an opinion written by Alito, dismissed the case due to lack of standing. So as long as the government does a good job of keeping the details of this program a secret, no one will ever have standing and the law can never be judicially challenged.

 

http://prospect.org/article/secret-wiretap...ause-its-secret

 

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

 

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

 

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka replied.

 

Edited February 27, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Oral arguments on the Voting Rights Act case were today. Scalia had some...interesting statements.

 

ell, maybe it was making that judgment, Mr. Verrilli. But that’s — that’s a problem that I have. This Court doesn’t like to get involved in — in racial questions such as this one. It’s something that can be left — left to Congress.

 

The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a — in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was — in the Senate, there — it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term.

 

Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

 

I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.

 

That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.

Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?.

 

Scalia uses initial opposition to the VRA as support that it isn't constitutional, and then argues that it's a bad thing that, once we give people enfranchisement, we tend not to repeal it later.

 

Why can't we leave this to Congress just because it's overwhelming unpopular to oppose voting rights protections? Why does the fact that it used to be ok to be openly racist in Congress but now isn't make this a constitutional issue for the Court to decide?

 

btw the areas that continue to have problems with voting racial discrimination are the areas covered by pre-clearance, so it's still a necessary and useful tool.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/shelby-c...covered-states/

 

I'd be in favor of expanding it to the entire country, but that's not a political possibility.

Edited February 27, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat

 

Scalia's arguments about "racial entitlements" also represent an odd theory of democracy. The strong support for the VRA, Scalia argues, is just a product of the fact that "when a society enacts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the ordinary political process." Note, first of all, the hostility evident in Scalia's phrasing: he seems to take for granted that it's an important goal to "get rid of" what he erroneously calls a "racial entitlement." And leaving that aside, his argument perversely assumes the effectiveness of the bill and the political support it generated are reasons the Court should strike it down. This makes no sense. As Justice Breyer noted, it's not irrational for legislators to want to continue to apply a remedy that has largely (but not fully) eradicated the disease of disenfranchisement. Nor is Scalia's belief that politics compels legislators in every state to vote for the bill (a Republican would lose a Senate seat in Utah or Mississippi of he voted against it? Really?) particularly plausible.

[Jenksismyhero]

http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat

 

He's using the same language that O'Connor used in the affirmative action cases - here's a "necessary" evil and hopefully we'll one day get rid of it.

 

And I think he's right that taking away race entitlements will be incredibly difficult going forward. Who's going to stick their neck out and tell a minority that money/benefits they receive from the government aren't necessary anymore?

[StrangeSox]

The VRA isn't money/benefits and it should be incredibly difficult to take away minority voting protections going forward. Though I'm skeptical of his claim that a vote against would necessarily cost someone their seat. It's not something they could campaign on, probably, but I doubt it would cause a Senate seat in Mississippi or Utah to go D.

 

There's no reason to ever get rid of the VRA or section 5. It's not evil, it is unquestionably good and it's success is an argument in favor of maintaining it, not judicially eliminating it. If anything, it should be expanded to every county in the nation, though as I linked above, the problem is still concentrated in the covered areas.

[StrangeSox]

And I think he's right that taking away race entitlements will be incredibly difficult going forward. Who's going to stick their neck out and tell a minority that money/benefits they receive from the government aren't necessary anymore?

 

btw this was essentially the Romney campaign last year, and he got 47% of the vote.

[StrangeSox]

Post-argument commentary: Voting rights are an American entitlement

 

Despite the Constitution’s express grant of authority to Congress to determine what legislation is “appropriate” to protect the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote free from racial discrimination, there was a lot of second-guessing of Congress from some of the Justices this morning. Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly pressed the VRA’s defenders about why all of the states aren’t subject to preclearance, given that voter suppression occurs in non-covered states as well as covered states. Justice Kennedy wondered if lawsuits filed under Section 2 of the VRA and the statute’s “bail-in” procedure could do the job of protecting voters’ rights just fine without preclearance. Justice Antonin Scalia, in a rather remarkable speech that drew gasps from the audience, second-guessed Congress’s motives for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act in 2006, suggesting that it was “perpetuation of a racial entitlement.”

 

Fortunately, Justice Sonia Sotomayor took on Scalia’s rather astonishing claim, pointing out that the right to vote is not a “racial entitlement.” I agree. It’s an American entitlement. The ideal of equality in our democracy has been our touchstone from the Declaration of Independence, to the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Fourth Amendments, and through the enactment and reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, which made equality in voting a reality for many previously disenfranchised Americans. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in the beginning of this morning’s argument, enormous progress has been made in the South and throughout our country. But Congress was right to recognize by reauthorizing the VRA that we still have much further to go in our march of progress. I hope the Court will ultimately uphold this iconic and still vital statute.

f

 

[bmags]

This woodward stuff is hysterical.

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/excl...26.html?hp=t2_3

[StrangeSox]

yeah turns out it was a whole bunch of nothing

 

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entr...riously?ref=fpa

[StrangeSox]

John Lewis: Antonin Scalia comments ‘appalling’

 

“It is an affront to all of what the civil rights movement stood for, what people died for, what people bled for, and those of us who marched across that bridge 48 years ago, we didn’t march for some racial entitlement,” he continued. “We wanted to open up the political process, and let all of the people come in, and it didn’t matter whether they were black or white, Latino, Asian-American or Native American.”

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

btw this was essentially the Romney campaign last year, and he got 47% of the vote.

 

He got 47% with 95% of African Americans voting for Obama, so yeah, that makes sense.

[Balta1701]

He got 47% with 95% of African Americans voting for Obama, so yeah, that makes sense.

And after all, they ought to count less. They don't appreciate that we've given them voting as an entitlement.

[StrangeSox]

He got 47% with 95% of African Americans voting for Obama, so yeah, that makes sense.

 

Who gives a s***? What Scalia said was incredibly racist, not to mention completely incoherent.

 

It's a god-damned mystery why 95% of African Americans didn't vote for Republicans when they keep reaching out to them like this. real f***in' head-scratcher.

[Jenksismyhero]

It's got nothing to do with race, it has to do with "entitlements." If you give an inch, people demand a mile. This happens with everything the government ever "gives" - tax breaks, medicare and social security coverage, welfare programs, etc. As soon as the government decides it's going to fund something, the chances of it ever stopping that is incredibly small. This applies to the rich and poor, to white people or minorities, etc.

 

I'm not sure how you guys don't see this. This is your parties bread and butter - Zomg! The Rich White Republican Land Owner is trying to take things away from you!! Don't vote for him! He doesn't care about you!

[Jenksismyhero]

Who gives a s***? What Scalia said was incredibly racist, not to mention completely incoherent.

 

It's a god-damned mystery why 95% of African Americans didn't vote for Republicans when they keep reaching out to them like this. real f***in' head-scratcher.

 

Lol, OMG he talked about entitlements based on race. THAS RAYCESS!

 

Jesus.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

Yes, that "entitlement" to vote.

 

You're talking about a bunch of irrelevant (but still silly) stuff in order to hand-wave away what he said, what he was talking about and what he is going to help do.

[Balta1701]

It's got nothing to do with race, it has to do with "entitlements." If you give an inch, people demand a mile.

If you give people the right to vote, they might vote for things that benefit them. This is totally unacceptable and a great reason why we should make every effort to keep people who disagree with my vote from voting (blacks, women, youth, whatever).

[StrangeSox]

So it's either a (still racist) rant against all those blacks on welfare and the politicians who can't vote against it, an irrelevant talk radio-level diatribe given in the middle of Supreme Court arguments, or it's a completely incoherent argument that voting rights protections are "racial entitlements" that the (originalist, dead-constitution, minimalist) court should strike down because Congress couldn't.

[CrimsonWeltall]

Lol, OMG he talked about entitlements based on race. THAS RAYCESS!

 

Jesus.

 

How is voting an entitlement?

[Balta1701]

How is voting an entitlement?

Because people who don't deserve to do so might get addicted to it and want to keep doing it.