Chairslinger

1 hour ago, ort said:

The way they've twisted Maxine Waters words is comical. There is truly no greater source of delicate snowflakes than the big voices in the right media. What a bunch of dishonest hypocritical clowns.

 

I've been watching Hannity a little bit here and there lately and I find it truly fascinating. Do we think that's he's a true believer? I find it hard to believe that he isn't self aware enough to realize exactly what he is and why.

 

Surely you can't get up there night after night and spew the kind of dishonest bullshit that he does and not be aware that he's turned into nothing more than the minister of propaganda for the republican party. He's not giving his opinion, he's manipulating every single story into whatever makes things go as smoothly as possible for his right wing masters so they can give as many breaks as they can to their big business masters. It's not even transparent.

I have heard insiders say that it's mostly a game to Hannity.

He's performing the propaganda equivalent of debate club where you defend a position regardless of your personal feelings.

To an extent, I think most Fox News personalities have had to do some mental gymnastics to get on board the Trump train, but I think it is a constant for Lumpy.

56 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

 

 

Hello darkness, my old friend.

In the articles that have examined what Kennedy leaving the court means, the lists actually aren't that long. Because as I mentioned in the other thread, Kennedy was never really a moderate to begin with, he was a conservative with a few exceptions like gay rights and being marginally willing to protect Roe in some form. There are also a few others like maybe being more open minded on gerrymandering or criminal justice reform then whoever Trump replaces him with.

What I haven't seen anyone really mention is how Heller may have been relatively watered down at the time to get Kennedy's vote. A recent lower court decision used Scalia's words against him to find a way to uphold an assault weapons ban, and SCOTUS decided not to intervene. It's very much an open question how far to the right the court will go on gun rights with Kennedy gone. 

I love it when Trump's fantasies aren't even internally consistent.

Like, even if you grant him 5 different dubious and/or downright bullshit propositions the claim still makes no sense.

In this case. No collusion! Witch hunt! Putin is a great guy who did nothing wrong. But also, there was Russian collusion, by Hillary Clinton, so she's a piece of shit, but somehow Putin is still totes cool.

Wasn't there an old interview from the 80's or 90's where Trump said he thought we should ditch all our other allies and align with Russia because Russia and America are all you need?

It looks like he might be making good on that plan.

2 hours ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

 

the way people hate on her is magical

Sean Hannity is a pretty good propagandist.

If that's the best he can do to smear this woman, I am fairly unworried about this supposed radical socialist takeover.

I would consider myself more on the moderate side of the party, and there is only 2 or 3 things on that list I might find objectionable at all.

4 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

And a bunch of Democrats are going to make excuses for them selling us out to keep their seats. Despite the fact that having red-state Democrats who vote with you some of the time instead of Republicans who vote with you none of the time doesn't do any good if they've helped the GOP stack the court with justices who will just overturn their better votes anyhow. 

I mean, to me it really depends on whether or not the vote is symbolic or not.

If we have enough to actually block the nominee with a couple GOP defections and a Dem casts the deciding aye vote, then fuck them. Probably the biggest challenge to my "anybody but a Republican" mindset this year was when I found out Donnelly voted aye for Haspel when we had enough GOP defections to stop her if we had stayed united.

However, if the GOP has the votes anyway, I see little use in taking a symbolic vote that only serves to make the Senate even harder to win.

Dems need to get more pragmatic, not more ideological. I'd rather have the 51st Dem in the Senate in 2019 when Trump tries to name RGB's successor then have a solid 49 loss on whoever Trump nominates this year.

6 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

 

Great system we have.

Even funner fact.

If Trump gets a second term that number will likely be 6.

17 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

I feel like he'll pick someone more like Judge Jeanine over a Milo Danonyogurtcup

  

 

 

14 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Judge Eric

Trump doesn't have to pick someone flashy, entertaining, or weird for SCOTUS.

He'll take the Federalist Society's recommendation and nominate someone presentable, qualified, and absolutely horrifying.

It's like picking Pence. Don't let the game show fool you. When it comes to the big decisions Trump knows where his bread is buttered.

1 minute ago, osxmatt said:

 

I know it’s been this way for a while, but I recently had a realization that Donald Trump, on most issues, is in a no-lose situation.

 

If he does something that people like, well, the ramifications of that are pretty obvious. 

 

If he does something that people don’t like, it excites Republicans and his base more than if he did something they liked in the first place.

 

He literally can do anything, and nothing matters.

Quit writing 2020 slogans for Trump's campaign.

20 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Instead his legacy will be looking at Trump and thinking, "Yup, this is the guy I want picking my replacement."

Did you read my post in your other thread that kind of predicted this a couple days ago?

Quote

 

The most worrying thing about all this punting is that I've heard arguments for and against why it hints at Kennedy retiring. And I find the "yes, he's retiring" argument to be more convincing.

 

Kennedy's recent nod towards overturning Chevron deference could be seen as indicating he is looking at being on the court to do so. But I also see it as indicating Gorsuch has been in his ear and, despite all Trump's flaws, Kennedy would still trust Trump to nominate his replacement then a Democrat. After all, Trump didn't do such a bad job with his buddy Gorsuch, amirite?

 

I think the narrative of Kennedy as the swing vote, while accurate up to a point, gave a false impression of exactly where the guy sits on the spectrum. He always preferred a Republican to replace him over a Democrat, and when Trump appointed his buddy Gorsuch it likely calmed any worry Kennedy had of Trump choosing someone unacceptable. Getting a replacement on the court is more of an art than a science, anyway. The president can't check every issue off a list when picking a nominee, and Kennedy has even less control over who his replacement is. For every Roe or Obergefell that Kennedy might have to worry about, he is also worried about just as many, if not more, conservative opinions he signed on to that might be overturned if he waits for a Democratic successor to Trump to replace him.

19 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

That is simply an impossibility in the political climate of 2018.

 

@Massdriver - the world -- not just the United States -- has moved on.  It really, honestly has and the sooner people accept that reality and learn to "deal" with it, the better.

This kind of connects to what I was saying above.

I was going to reply half jokingly to Mass's wish for a balanced court by saying they're all balanced courts.....after the dust settles. The idea that we had a "balanced" court was an illusion molded by what the court would allow. I am not sure of the statistics, but I read that this recent session out of 13 5-4 decisions Kennedy voted with the conservatives 13 times. 

Obviously he wasn't always that one-sided, but the few Kennedy defections were such big deals that they generally overshadowed the fact that he sided with the conservatives far more often than he did the liberals. If this court was "balanced" than the court after Kennedy will be "balanced". The center(likely Roberts) will just shift a good deal to the Right.

3 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Schumer, Warren, Durbin and Merkley have all called for this to happen after the election. They're pulling that card.

As I stated above, I think that might help Republicans. 

They keep it in their pocket to energize their base, and even on the off chance that it doesn't work the House is the one in danger, not the Senate.

And even in the off-er chance that Dems win the Senate, McConnell can just confirm during the lame duck, anyway.

Let's not hold any illusion that losing would "shame" him into not ramming through someone. It's essentially what they did with the tax cuts after Jones won.

Bottom line is that Dems have never shown that a SCOTUS pick is a political winner for them. Republicans have.

15 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

STOP POSTING HORSESHIT!

 

I mean, for Christ's sake, that fails a basic "sanity check".

Just for reference, a basic sanity check means a quote is obviously false if a random CEO sounds even half as petty, vindictive, and unhinged as our current president?

1 minute ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Dems have zero leverage here. All they can do is call out Republican hypocrisy. 

Yup.

This is like the tax cut vote. 

Dems were hoping they could repeat the health care win by peeling off some votes, but they should have appreciated that tax cuts were always what Republicans wanted to do. Many of them didn't want to take a hard vote on health care and own it.

Getting judges is probably the only thing that Republicans want more than tax cuts. John McCain will vote aye to whoever Trump picks if they have to wheel his hospital bed onto the Senate floor.

3 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Actually this is true, I can very easily see McConnell dragging it out while the GOP goes into full-force lying that the Democrats are obstructing the nomination as a way to try to energize the base into showing up to vote.

Yup.

With the tax cuts not resonating, and the White Nationalist message seeming to turn off as many people as it energizes for them, this is the one thing I have seen all year that I think has a good chance of de-fanging that blue wave.

Quote

The decision overturns a 41-year-old precedent 

Get used to reading descriptions like for a lot of SCOTUS decisions going forward.

Sure am glad we don't have all those "activist" judges on the court....

5 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

 

That’s why I asked if he was being literal.

 

Fall begins on 9/22. No way he actually waits that long for a vote.

McConnell might want to use the vote to energize the Right.

Since the Senate is a long shot for Dems to begin with, and it worked out for him pretty damn well in '16, I wouldn't be surprised if he actually dragged out the final vote until after the election. 

It can not be overstated just how intoxicating the promise of finally overturning Roe is to the Right. 

Evangelicals held their nose and voted for Trump in '16 just to keep the status quo on the court. Imagine what it looks like to single issue voters to finally have that victory within reach after 4 decades of fighting for it. 

This is why Kennedy has been punting and rolling over. He didn't want his "legacy" to be a bunch of quickly overturned decisions.

Prepare for a court with Roberts as the "swing vote". Obergefell might survive, but Roe is likely gone in all but name. Which actually might be worse because they'll get to keep it as a campaign issue, while making abortion effectively illegal in every state that can come up with a minimally defensible law.

As bad as Roberts is, at least he's not an originalist activist. The real fun is when Trump gets to replace RGB or one of the other liberals.

At that point, you all but have a Scalia-like majority on the court. Forget gay marriage, we might be back to sodomy laws. Miranda rights might be gone. Almost no one appreciates how far a court like that might go because the things they might do are things we take so for granted that we haven't even thought to ask the questions.

Here's a pleasant thought. If Trump is considering fighting a supeona, firing Mueller, or pardoning himself he now has a timeline to do it.....

3 hours ago, Jason said:

 

So they're giving him the travel ban with a bunch of warnings about going too far.

It's a good thing that authoritarian leaders don't perceive such victories as a license to push things one step further.....

I was always pretty skeptical that the ban would lose at SCOTUS because I think the court is kind of hoping we can get through 4 years without having to entirely rewrite presidential authority due to what they are hoping is a one time thing.

5 hours ago, Wild said:

I wish there were a different dinosaur franchise than this one at this point. Like, what if dinosaurs never went extinct and we evolved alongside them while also following a similar track of technological development? There are tons of stories you could do with that premise.

I agree.

I enjoyed Jurassic World, and I like the direction they went with Fallen Kingdom trying to shake up the formula a bit.

But ultimately it's a franchise that made for one great film due to it's unique concept, but all the followups(no matter how well executed) are stuck in that same constraining concept.

11 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

 

YO, I was trying to get in touch with you about the board reboot. Glad to see you back.

You know, out of all the threads over the years, one that really jumped out at me is how big of a bummer it is that we lost the Star Trek impressions thread. Getting to see you go from hesitant to huge fan of TNG reminded a lot of us longtime fans just why we were big fans to begin with. Lots of good discussion on that thread.

24 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

My coworker actually argued that it's not the same because the baker wasn't exactly refusing service to the gay couple, he was just refusing to participate in something he saw as sinful.

 

 

This is why I avoid political and religious discussions at work, though it's freaking hard, because I'm surrounded by it.

These types of arguments are some of the stupidest I've heard, but also one's I have the hardest time countering on the fly for some reason.

The "arbitrarily changing the meaning of words to fit my need at the moment" defense reminds me of the "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship" defense that Christians use as to why it just magically doesn't have to follow the First Amendment's prohibition on state sponsorship.

It's like the fucking Chewbacca defense......

Also, I can relate to not even bothering in the workplace. It's bad enough trying to debate this stuff in an ideal setting. Trying to drill through the impenetrable brick wall that is the thinking process of a Trump supporter inbetween having to get shit done at work strikes me as about the most pointless waste of time imaginable.

Just now, SFLUFAN said:

FOR CHRIST' SAKE - DO YOU KNOW HOW HAD I TRIED TO CONTACT YOU!?!?  I EVEN FRIENDED YOU ON PSN, XBL, and UPLAY!

I appreciate the effort  

Ironically, I don't socialize much online nowadays other than these boards. Kind of a catch 22 when they were down.....

Just now, CitizenVectron said:

Why wouldn't they be paying tariffs? Because he is confident that the trade war will be won before they are implemented? lol.

They "won't pay tariffs" in the same way that "Mexico is going to pay for the wall".

I have a hard time putting myself in the mindset of these hypothetical overweight people who are fat but just don't know it. Perhaps they have been obese since childhood and so have no frame of reference?

Personally, I got about 20 pounds over what I would consider my normal weight at one point, and I felt it every time I would bend over or sit up. And this was at a point where I was just barely over the "overweight" line on BMI charts.