Discussion for article #236915
Why do you think Bush tried to fire every single AG in every state that wasnât Galt friendly.
The laws on the local and state levels are just a mess and a mish mash in their attempt to negate our Federation.
There are still âdry countiesâ in the USA where they never overturned prohibition.
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Itâs not really clever so much as conservatives use every tool available to achieve their policy aims, and only respect offices/institutions when said support those aims. Stacking the judiciary is just another way that allows them to game the system to get their way regardless of how the rest of the political system is arrayed.
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An excellent article, but the author failed to emphasize one other important point. The Federalist Society has not only ââŚplayed a prominent role in promoting legal attacks on progressive causes,â the Society has also played a key role as a federal judicial system talent source for the most conservative justices.
They spot promising talent early and groom them for the future. Then when the GOP has the reins of power in the White House the Society has a handy list of good (from their viewpoint) candidates ready to push forward for appointments to fill in gaps throughout the system. John Roberts himself is a prime example of this system.
And even when the GOP does not have the lever of power immediately at hand, they use the system to block appointments of anyone with remotely progressive credentials, while continually pushing candidates whose learnings are as far right as t hey can get away with.
They have been extremely successful in driving this system for several decades now and the American judicial system reflects it in increasingly conservative justices in lifetime posts throughout and a powerful tool to go after even those few successes progressives win at the ballot box or in Congress.
It is a reflection of the fact that whatever else its shortcomings, the Conservative movement has a very long-term vision and has proven exceptionally skilled at winning battles even as the electorateâs views and their actual numbers trend in opposite directions.
Courts, gerrymandering, voter ID laws, blocking progressive judges and views. They are losing battles, but winning the war.
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The AGs who got fired lost their jobs because they were not (in the eyes of GOP zealots and the Bush Justice Department) being zealous enough in their pursuit of evidence of voter fraud.
They were pressured to do so. Many did and found nothing. They reported back and were told, look again and look harder. Some refused saying that it was not a critical issue, they had found nothing and they didnât want to waste limited time and resources continuing a fruitless search.
Result: Fired.
Result: Refusal of the Justice Department to pursue claims of voter discrimination
Result: Pressure at the state level (often successful) to pass voter ID laws, despite any evidence of fraud.
I canât âlikeâ this . . . but I can agree.
I met an aide to Pete Wilson in 1981. He explained that he had just attended a strategic planning session. I was only 18 at the time and truth be told he was kind of a 20-something smirking frat boy who was trying to pick me up in the bar at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in Union Square San Francisco. He wanted to impress me as well as demonstrate what an âidiotâ I was for believing that social security would apply to me at some point in the future. (Iâm now 53 . . . and I still believe in Social Security).
Iâve wished ever since that I had put down what he said to me that day in a sealed envelope.
He explained to me how they determined during this session the best way to dismantle the entirety of the social safety and business regulatory laws enacted to protect workers and the environment. (I remember it vividly because I had never heard of âstrategic planningâ until that day).
He said: "We want to get rid of social security and all social benefit programs. We have three high level strategies to achieve this goal:
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We need to convince the general public that the government gives money to undeserving black people. That it takes money out of their pockets and raises prices to pay wages to people who donât deserve it and that they will personally benefit if they cut wages and benefits to âthose peopleâ because they are more deserving and hardworking and uniquely capable and exceptional who did everything on their own without help.
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We need to drive home that at the very worst the government is there to actively harm them as hardworking americans and at the very best it is incompetent and useless. That the general public gets no benefit at all from the government and that the government is really there to harm them and to take from them; and
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That at all times that the media is unrepentantly liberal and out of touch with the concerns of real americans. (on this point, he leaned in and saidâwe know the media is very status quo but because by the end of the civil rights movement most supported equal rights and it doesnât sound very good not to support civil/equal rights we will just make the word âliberalâ a dirty word so that people feel uncomfortable and ashamed to be called liberal.
I think back on this day constantly. How successful their three high level goals were and how they really used the racist nature of white middle class Americans to roll back the very workerâs rights and supports earned by just one generation before them. This same narrative is still in play today.
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The conservative goal legislatively and judicially is to render the American public helpless in its right of redress so that corporations and wealthy interests end up making rules that benefit their narrow interests, which are to maximize profits and minimize liabilities. In short Republicans want Americans to be discouraged into submission to give up their rights.
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And that is why it is vitally important to keep the White House (and hopefully win back the Senate) next year. The GOP has played the waiting game on judicial nominations almost to the breaking point - sooner rather than later, even red state goons will suffer from the court backlogs and will demand that vacancies be filled. The GOP is hoping to wait out the clock and have a Repub president do that from 2017 onward. So wouldnât it be a fantastic thing for progressive causes if instead it were a Dem president filling all those vacancies?
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But even in the minority, they have proven very skilled and relentless in using the rules of Congress to block or delay nominees as long as they can. Note how often if a nominee finally DOES get a vote, they pass by very large margins. Itâs a game, but with a deadly goal and they pursue it relentlessly in good times and bad and the arc swings ever in their direction.
At the same time, but pursuing the goals spelled out by that guy at the bar, they work to discourage opponents from voting by pushing the message that it doesnât matter who they vote for, they are all the same. It is all part of spreading the idea that government is totally corrupt and nothing can be done to try and fix it, so why try.
Liberals and the so-called liberal media were slow to notice the salting of federal courts with Federalists. Still, itâs been obvious form what 20 or 30 years and none of the liberal orgs has mounted a serious sustained challenge.
The thing to keep in mind is that this is hardly new at all. Conservatives, or at least what would be considered conservatives today, on the SCOTUS and other courts have been one of the biggest detriments to progress that has ever been.
There are many decisions that ignore the words of a law or amendment, judicial precedent and so on just to fit the needs of a given ideology. It is not new and not right but it has always been. They are one of the reasons that child labor, the resistance to minimum wage and so on took so long to get through. Congress did it and the court struck it down for business and other wealthy people with big ideas or something.
One always hopes that the Courts act independently but that would never be true. They are people and have bias to them, but minimizing that is key. There can even be valid views within the law, but it is annoying when someone reaches beyond the law to pull something out of nowhere.
It could be argued that even Roe vs Wade was grasping a bit at the time, even if all cases sense then have reinforced it. That is not to say I disagree with it, the right is critical but there was reaching by the left as well. Just nowhere near as much and in many cases not so blatantly ideological. And even if it was, it was to the common persons benefit not just those with means. So the negative seemed to benefit society as opposed to the very few.
Typo, maâam: You put âcleverâ where âevilâ was the correct word.
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Face it. The Constitution assumes the parties involved would not seek to deliberately undermine it. How wrong they were.
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You are right, history, which this author seems to forget, shows the use of the courts by both the right and the left. Roe, Brown, and numerous other cases were used to expand and change the law for the left. What is different now is the complete failure of the Dems to use all of the tools that are available. When was the last time you heard a Dem politician say that Reagan was indeed the worst President we ever had, and when have the Dems gotten out front and said that citizens are the Government and that in fact does good things when they are in power. A lot has to do with the strategy early on of getting the most money they could and using it in ways like funding ALEC. The Dems are coming late to the game, and are somewhat lax at the attack game, and Obama for all the good he did destroyed the DNC to use for his reelection bid while ignoring the state parties. John Dean had it right in the 50 state campaign, but the Obama people never understood the necessity of building a second and third string and a minor league all to the detriment of the liberal base.
If the Democrats want to stop this stuff just attempt to pass a tax law on the wealthy to pay to deport all these people and watch the fireworks.
This story is written in an outrageous style. âAmerican familiesâ means Mexican families living in the us illegally. They came here to drive down wages and now they wanted to be rewarded for it.
And who or what benefits from this chipping away? Not conservatism, not the constituents or the nation as a whole.
Its always the same, its all about money. If not, then we would have rampant progressivism and beloved/successful program after program strictly geared for the people. Including the real worldâs best universal healthcare.
We would have a synergy between government and its people and a balance of government for the people vs. government for the corporation.
But we have the opposite now, the damage is done and the greedy have prevailed.
Both sides are winning battles and there is no way that this can be seen as the end of the war, but the Progressive movement needs to toughen up and get in the fight. Passivism doesnât work in this arena.
We donât elect a government to work against us but the ultra rich do and their idea of a fair fight annihilates the idea of what âfair fightâ means.
Progressive and tough must be intertwined because conservative and shitty are a fact.
Do tell. What ever happened to this guy? Hacks like this donât disappear, they get judicial appointments. Letâs track him down, because this is a perfect illustration of the deceit and projection of the republicant juggernaut alive and well today.
Great story, and I âlikeâ it.
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I donât know who has time for this shit, but hereâs a good link:
If indeed you still have time: