For right-wing litigants, the line of communication has never been clearer. Their ideologically aligned Supreme Court justices send out messages — “trial balloons,” “bat signals” — in concurrences and dissents, raising a topic that maybe, perhaps, it would behoove a motivated lawyer to bring up in a case.
But she mingled with people at Goldman Sachs and actually gave talks to them!
You’d have to believe in buff space-granddad to spout or swallow this much hogwash.
The intellectual flexibility required to believe in God should bar anyone from the bench.
Love the title of this article.
Detest our supremely corrupt scotus and our fascist leaning courts (thankfully it’s not all of them).
When voters have cut off their noses to spite their face, I’m not inclined to risk their wrath by recommending a plastic surgeon.
A few weeks before that year’s election, the then president’s adherents paraded through the county seat Summersville, and the Democrats held a counterprotest. Trump supporters then turned up outside the party’s offices in their pickup trucks, burning out their tires and kicking up gravel. The landlords called not long after and told the Democrats to leave, and ever since, the party has been itinerant, meeting in churches, restaurants and, most recently, Summersville’s city hall.
“West Virginia was ripe for flipping,” said Mike Plante, a Democratic strategist based in Charleston, describing a belief among the state’s residents that outsiders were intent on both harming its economy and disrespecting its culture. “There’s a feeling that we’ve kind of been taken advantage of for years and years and years, and I think that plays into the Maga message of score-settling.”
This is why we have Trump Judges.
Holy Kleenex Batman. It was right under our nose and we blew it!
The vote is about all we have.
Until it’s rendered meaningless (it already is in some situations) by gerrymandering, voter suppression techniques and legislative nullification, to mention a few sculduggeries.
And to only have the US Attorney General be able to sue in voting rights cases means that in the stripped down Administrative state that Republicans want, with power being given to the Executive branch, then there will be no recourse.
Another interesting article in the guardian relates how a US PR firm works hand in glove with authoritarian governments to raise their level of trust though PR techniques.
The Guardian and Aria, a non-profit research organization, analyzed Edelman trust barometers, as well as Foreign Agent Registration Act (Fara) filings made public by the Department of Justice, dating back to 2001, when Edelman released its first survey of trust. (The act requires US companies to publish certain information about their lobbying and advocacy work for foreign governments.) During that time Edelman and its subsidiaries have been paid millions of dollars by autocratic governments to develop and promote their desired images and narratives.
Polling experts have found that public opinion surveys tend to overstate the favorability of authoritarian regimes because many respondents fear government reprisal. That hasn’t stopped these same governments from exploiting Edelman’s findings to burnish their reputations and legitimize their holds on power.
Ultimately, it’s all about the nexus of big money and power. There’s plenty of people who lust after power and just as many who’ll gleefully take their money. And don’t kid yourself, a Trump Adminstration II will entail a propaganda machine “the likes of which the world has never seen before!” It’ll be like Fox News becomes a government agency.
ETA. “Money” quote.
Benjamin Freeman of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft said: “Instead of Americans associating Saudi Arabia with 9/11 or with the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, they want us thinking about golf. They want us thinking about the arts world. They want us thinking about Hollywood.
“Anything that they can do to pull the blinders over our eyes, they’re going to do it. And folks like Edelman, PR folks like that, they have no shortage of ideas for exactly how to get that done.”
Who will be Trump’s Lord Haw Haw?
Trump is his own Lord Haw Haw, is he not?
Well I was thinking that, but with the changes that he wants to put in place then he’ll need a second. Michael Cohen was always his second pre-presidency, so Jason Miller?
Anyways, oldie, but goodie…
‘Tis the season for treason! #MarALego pic.twitter.com/HJ4g9beZqn
— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) December 9, 2022
“This is all related to a shift in the conversation about whether we want to operate our country as a liberal democracy where everyone has a voice”
That is not for courts to decide.
The Republican Party ran on the platform to end activist judges. Now in position to execute that promise, Republicans are slipping in “super-activist” judges.
The Republican Party is built on lies.
Soon to be themselves replaced by “Attention-deficit Hyper-activist” judges.
It’s very simple. The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Therefore, if a black citizen of the US comes up to you, o federal judge, and tells you “I’ve been discriminated against on the basis of race,” you are to look down your nose, snort, and tell him he’s committing a pathetic thought crime, and he ought to get out of your sight quick or you’ll slap him in irons.
Et voila, a post-racism society!
The fix is in. This reads as ambitious rightwing judges divorced from reality/history eager to please their neoConfederate Autocratic masters for eventual advancement. Not pretty, and bad law because it’s woefully arbitrary, capricious, and de facto racist.
Donald Trump loves West Virginia culture. That’s why he lives in Florida.
IIRC the right to vote is the only right of the people that was written in our Constitution before the Bill of Rights. Let’s not lose that, OK?
