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U.S. Politics: The Biggest Trade in WNBA History

Pikachu52

Well-Known Member
As an aside, people kept saying Kavanaugh was so angry, but it looked more like he was doing his best to hold his angry face so that he could keep from crying.

All I saw was a sniveling little *****.

What's also interesting to note is that all three victims describe their assault in eerily similar settings, these are some pretty coordinated conspirators, yeah?

One thing that should be noted is that when Kavanaugh was on the stand being a “Sniveling Little...” he launched into a clearly partisan attack in which he blamed all the usual right wing bogeymen; The Democrats, left wing money groups and, of course, the Clintons. So immediately we have the nominee for Supreme Court, the top appellant court in the United States, not only making partisan statements but repeating rightwing talking points.

A point to note about his testimony though, that I hadn’t considered until I saw it pointed out on Rachel Maddow’s Show. The basis of the conservative attacks on Dr. Ford have been that she waited until Brett Kavanaugh had been nominated to the Supreme Court before coming forward. She actually didn’t - In her testimony she stated that she decided to come forward when she heard he had been shortlisted as a potential nominee:


The other thing to note is that despite Kavanaugh’s passionate defence of himself, he has in fact committed a crime. Putting aside allegations of sexual assault, Kavanaugh seems to have admitted to underage drinking as a teenager.

In my view the entire conformation process has become toxic and could do lasting damage to the Judiciary. If he is confirmed, a large porition of the country will be angry that a potential rapist appointed to the court by a president who may well have selected him as a get out of jail card. And to get him there the Republican have gone out there way to smear a sexual assault survivor. If not, republicans will - well Lindsey Graham summed up their feelings.

The last time the Supreme Court was seen through this much of a partisan lens, FDR attempted to “pack” the court, sending legislation to congress that would have allowed him to appoint additional justices to break the conservative majority responsible for repeatedly striking down early parts of “the new deal.”
 
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U.N. Owen

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night ...
The last time the Supreme Court was seen through this much of a partisan lens, FDR attempted to “pack” the court, sending legislation to congress that would have allowed him to appoint additional justices to break the conservative majority responsible for repeatedly striking down early parts of “the new deal.”
Objectively, this case is worse than FDR's attempt to pack the court. That would actually be perfectly legal. The SCOTUS has no official number of judges in the Constitution just like it doesn't designated bureaucracy as a fourth branch of the government.

This, however, in the era of social media and instant news, would sharpen the political divide in the nation. Politics and morality have always been intertwined, but in this day and age when politics becomes more personal and therefore more moral, nothing good can come from this.
 
If partisanship has become so bad to where the common people will go gun ho to defend rapists, then pack the damn court. We're past the point where we can walk this back.

I've made this stump speech before, but there's no playing fair against an opponent that has no intention of playing fair. They're ready to ignore years of precedent and judicial process to ram through a supreme court appointee who's clear purpose is to save Trump's ass from criminal investigation. You wanna play? We'll play. Judging by how the democrats behaved during the hearings, it seems like they finally, finally learned that. They didn't play patty cake, they didn't come to compromise, everyone came with their battle face on and showed up for a fight. Hats off to the senate. A very special shoutout to Cory Booker for putting his senatorial position at risk by threatening to expose confidential emails. It was a pretty rare moment of courage for democrats.
 

Trainer Yusuf

VolcaniNO
Meanwhile in Europe:
https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/...ajority-voters-support-agreement-turnout-low/
The non-binding constitutional referendum in Macedonia has passed with a yes vote, albeit with low turnout. If this passes and is ratified, then Macedonia can sign the protocol with NATO this year(though it would take until next year for the Allied countries), otherwise Macedonia might need to have early elections(regular elections will happen next year anyway).

I'll probably have another post by Sunday or next Monday for the incoming Romanian gay marriage ban referandum, since I don't know how that will be ratified yet(I guess very shortly since Romania lowered the necessities for referendums to pass).

Edit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...to-nafta-replacement-that-will-include-mexico
NAFTA will be superseded by USMCA, which seems to be a weird free-for-all mixture of NAFTA, TPP and Trump tariffs. So yeah, NAFTA is dead, long live NAFTA.

Edit 2:
https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/...eu-ignore-germany-support-correction-borders/
Trump apparently supports land exchange between Serbia and Kosovo.

Edit 3: Indian rupee has reached its lowest rate in 10 years today, it doesn't seem like that the Indian crisis will be solved anytime soon.
 
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You know how way back when "practical" liberals were saying that anti-establishment progressives who didn't take big money don't win or can't win elections?

Yeah, that's not what's happening now.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Honestly it's more looking authentic if anything. It's why Beto is doing so well in Texas, he genuinely seems like someone who even if you don't 100% agree on at least seems human about it, compared to bug suit Ted Cruz who would probably kill his wife and sell his kids into slavery just to attempt a sob story.
 
I like Beto O'rourke, certainly more than Ted Cruz, but when I see him speak my sub conscious, my intuition, whatever, tells me something is a little off about him.

At first I thought it was simply because he appears so stiff. The poor man looks like if you tapped his nose with a pickax you'd send cracks all up and down his body. Then, I was able to narrow it down to gestures. He's got the classic politician thumb point flashing about the place, annoying, but everyone does it so we'll give him a break. Narrowing it down further, it seems he purposefully emulates Barack Obama even down to the pauses between words. During interviews, he's not terribly quick on his feet and often reverts to politician speak, i.e. "I've spoken with the great people of such and such, I've heard from the farmers of such and such."

There was also the curious admission, during his interview with TYT, that he refuses to read polls because he "doesn't need to" if he's speaking to people throughout the state. I thought that was really foolish. I can see why you would want to convey to voters that you're a politician that exercises his own judgement and won't just blindly follow the whim of the masses, but polling statistics are important for any politician to have on hand. They're useful not just to tell a leader how to vote, but multiple reasons, including how to approach a particular subject.

tl;dr I'll take him! But he gives me shifty eyes. Just a little bit.

I'm much more excited about Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez .
 
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bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Oh yeah, he's totally copying Obama in a lot of ways. Plus if you look at him from the left there are legit criticisms, but honestly a Dem Senator in Texas would be a huge gain and I feel he's going to be slightly left of moderate, but in this race if he can win I'll take it. He's playing smart and it's paying off, and I doubt he's going to go any more right than he is right now.

Plus Ted Cruz getting voted out would be amazing. Losing the Presidential Primary to someone who routinely broke him down, and then losing what should have been a slam dunk race in Texas? That would be the best news this election honestly on a single race event.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
Honestly it's more looking authentic if anything. It's why Beto is doing so well in Texas, he genuinely seems like someone who even if you don't 100% agree on at least seems human about it, compared to bug suit Ted Cruz who would probably kill his wife and sell his kids into slavery just to attempt a sob story.
I would vote an actual bug over Ted Cruz.

For example, Mr. C. Cada with the campaign slogan, "chirp chirp screech".

Also, I'm tired of being represented with dead ruse.
 
The FBI investigation into Kavanaugh has already been concluded by the white house. They didn't use the full week, Kavanaugh wasn't even questioned, and the report is being held confidential.

It's a pretty brazen cover up.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
These people really do deserve to get harassed any time they’re out in public. Make sure they don’t enjoy a peaceful moment outside.
 
I am too. Kavanaugh's appointment will officially mark the loss of the judiciary.

For the first time in a long time, the news cycle has genuinely made me want to cry.
 

Pikachu52

Well-Known Member
Now this is interesting.

The Kavanaugh hearings may actually be exciting the the GOP base to a degree that it may actually help the party in the mid-terms - enough to stymie hopes of a "blue wave" this November. This seems to imply that, one Kavanaugh's terrible confirmation hearing performance has not turned republican's off, and two that the GOP seems to embodying the #Metoo backlash.

Trump himself tried to embody this directly, saying to reporters “It’s a very scary time for young men in America," clearly implying that there's some wave of false accusations. I suppose he would think it's a scary time that a lot of women have come forward with sexual assault allegations against powerful men, given 12 woman have accused him of sexual assault, he's being sued by two women for defamation in relation to affairs and his former personal lawyer was indicted for campaign finance violations for paying off Stormy Daniels.

At the same time, according to this piece in the Atlantic, if Kavanaugh is confirmed it could help to energise the Democratic base. So whoever looses the Kavanaugh battle may ultimately win the war for congress. And don't forget, Democrats only have to flip one house to being opening investigations into both Kavanaugh and Trump.

This is why I hate these rallies he holds. He spends too much time openly mocking anyone who criticizes him or opposes him or anyone in his administration. Its disgusting that he’s openly mocking her, even more so that Sarah Sanders tries to defend it as “stating facts”.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/10/03/politics/white-house-trump-ford-defense/index.html?r=https://www.google.com/&rm=1

As Stephen Colbert pointed out on his show, Trump actually lied about what Dr. Ford had said during the hearing:


At this stage, I honestly don't know how Sarah Huckabee-Sanders has any credibility left.
 

Zora

perpetually tired
With so much about Kavanaugh I'm not entirely sure if this got properly discussed: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/438w4p/brett-kavanaugh-is-a-threat-to-disabled-peoples-rights Essentially, what Kavanaugh means for disabled people. Mentioning this now since the article covers the basics that I simply didn't want to dive into.

The key case he ruled was Doe vs DC where it's argued whether or not people with intellectual disabilities have a choice over their decision to have surgery; Kavanaugh ruled no. This sets up alarm bells, since as someone with a developmental/cognitive disability (which is adjacent, but not the same, as intellectual) the idea that a doctor can overrule my medical choices is frightening. Also note that Kavanaugh wants to force abortion on intellectually disabled people but is supposedly against abortion. I'll leave it to the reader to reconcile those two facts.

The other concerns Affordable Care Act (ACA). I feel most of us are familiar with the basics of healthcare to get Kavanaugh wants ACA dead and many disabled people can't live without healthcare. Like, there's no gentle way to put it--if ACA is struck down, people die.

The other issue concerns American with Disabilities Act (ADA). This is perhaps a good time to remind you HR 620 exists and made its way to the senate in February of this year. HR 620 creates a loophole of needing to provide a 'clear' written notice that must be addressed within six months that allows companies to effectively ignore the ADA--wait six months and say the notice wasn't clear. Point being, the right isn't too keen on helping disabled people. Kavanaugh has historically sided against disabled people in ADA-related disputes (e.g. with employer). It's hard to say specifically what'll happen to the ADA.

Anyway, there really isn't much of a point to this post. The vice article just conveniently aggregated what we knew so I didn't have to track down sources. In either case, these are issues to keep on your radar.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Kavanaugh is the one judge who saw Blackfish and decided to side for Sea World.
 
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