I hope reality turns out to be an incredibly immersive sequel to Idiocracy or something similar that I can wake up from and criticize for being dumb, if occasionally amusing. It’s the only way I can make peace with things like this story.

My guess is evangelicals just assume their nominees are pumping the brakes on rhetoric until elected, at which point they’ll continue their assault on all forms of reproductive rights. “It’s too controversial right now, but God’s laws will supersede man’s laws in the end”. I have an evangelical family member that actually prays that last bit.

I know that, but if “might makes right” was suddenly a thing it would be a big mess. My point was we probably don’t want to be bringing assassination/violence into the discussion about checks and balances, even if it comes with a wink, because there are definitely folks who will consider it.

"Over the decades, antagonism between the Republican state government and the Democratic and Black-led local government created additional obstacles to updating Jackson’s water and sewage infrastructure. A Title VI civil rights complaint that the NAACP filed with the EPA in September 2022 accused Governor Reeves and the state legislature of “systematically depriving Jackson the funds that it needs to operate and maintain its water facilities in a safe and reliable manner.”

Add “clean, safe water” and “proper sewage systems” to the list of things being unnecessarily made political. I may not support some political views but I want to “win” on merit and due process, not because folks are desperate for the most basic of human needs. Depriving people of clean water because you don’t like how they vote is pretty evil in my books.

Yeah, like I said in my other post about missing the point - I suspected but was hoping for something more legitimate since my knowledge is not nearly exhaustive. Once you start employing “alternatives” things can go downhill fast. Imagine the mess if the Jan 6th insurrection had actually been effective in some way for instance.

I guess. I understood what might have been said, but I was hoping it was something legitimate that I just didn’t know (which is a lot given I’m a) Canadian and b) not a lawyer/governmental expert). “Other mechanisms” tend to be messy, and once they’re on the table things can go to crap fast.

I wouldn’t ask you to do my research for me, but do you have a starting point, like a search term, for some? I can only find articles like this one, “A Supreme Court Accountable to No One”, which details the difficulties reigning in SCOTUS judges.

It feels like overturning Roe vs. Wade in 2022 was a signal flare to lawmakers about what they could legitimately expect to get away with as long as the current SCOTUS judges sit. Since then it seems every few weeks I’m reading about new laws or proposed laws that would push the nation into the past by removing personal freedoms, punishing speech, removing job protections, etc. This is another example - librarians aren’t an existential threat and books should only be banned for really, really good reasons and boys holding hands isn’t one.

The USA needs a way for the citizens to hold national and state Supreme Court Justices accountable or at least force a review of their decisions. Right now I’m told that the only mechanism is impeachment, which happened once in 1803.

First Republican representatives Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher resigned in protest of what’s happening in their party and left early to make it hurt. Earlier I read about a Murdoch-owned, Trump “favorite” newspaper mocking MTG with the headline “Nyet, Moscow Marjorie”. Now there’s this story. Maybe, just maybe, we’re starting to hit the limits of what GOP extremist politicians can do openly without self-sabotaging consequences. The timing of this infighting erupting into public view is just icing on the cake.

I’ll upvote, agree they aren’t exactly the same, and edit but I’ll also argue they should both be illegal. That is admittedly opinion but let me explain. My reasoning is there are other examples of passively, but still criminally, failing to protect a child: improper storage of firearms, explosives, or chemicals. Not using seatbelts or safety seats. Failing to secure medical aid for a desperately ill child. I am not a lawyer, but those seem to set precedents where the adult wasn’t actively putting a gun in the kid’s hand or causing a fatal illness but they were still prosecuted.

Given the prevalence of anti-vaxxer parents, it seems current law doesn’t make failure to vaccinate your young child a criminal charge. My argument, and I know there are other views, is it should be (although defining criminal limits would require work). We protect kids in other situations where there’s no ill intent and IMO that’s a good thing. I know my position errs towards caution and is somewhat extreme, but polio is pretty extreme. The arguments that anti-vaxxers bring eerily mirror those brought by people who resisted seat belts (and I know you clearly aren’t one, just continuing the reasoning). 40 years later I think most agree mandatory seat belts proved to be a good and reasonable requirement that saves thousands every year.

Kids can’t protect themselves. They don’t have the ability to make their own informed choices. Please don’t destroy the evidence-based protections we have that keep them from dying, being crippled, having to get a machine to breathe for them permanently, etc. We have decades of data and it’s overwhelmingly clear: vaccines save lives and do so incredibly safely.

Every time a child is seriously harmed because a parent ignored vaccine guidelines the parents should be charged with criminal neglect. It’s no different not different enough than if you fed your children say, mercury, and then claimed you believed it was helpful because of Facebook gurus or similarly unaccredited sources. In both situations a child is being permanently harmed due to choices they have no ability to understand, resist or protest and thus we need laws to protect them.

Also, not only are the anti-vaxxer parents endangering their own children, but also everyone else’s by increasing risk of their kids becoming vectors/reservoirs for infection and potential mutation into new strains that could evade current vaccines. “High mutation rate is an important characteristic of viruses that can enable them to evade immune responses and propagate infection.” So not only are anti-vaxxers making choices for their own kids, but potentially also others’ kids. It’s not guaranteed but it’s rolling some high-stakes dice.

"The complaint comes after The Daily Beast first reported in January that the court-appointed special monitor in Trump’s New York business fraud case had buried a bombshell claim in a footnote to a status report: A mysterious $50 million loan, which Trump reported owing to one of his own LLCs, “never existed.”

Imagine engaging in so much fraud that a 50-million-dollar discrepancy is a footnote on your court-appointed watchdog’s status report.

Good advice. The list of politicians I trust is short, is never unconditional, and doesn’t include anyone who supports Trump or uses Trump-style outrage politics. Even those who only do it for party solidarity are propping up a terrible person and a destructive trend.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an embarrassing wreck of insanity, drama, and poor education and she’s not alone in her club of like-minded fans of chaos and governmental sabotage. I’d be surprised if Republicans implode before the election, but less so than at the start of the year given that Republicans Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher have already resigned in protest. If the legitimately extremist Republicans prove to be more serious than usual about their political brinkmanship then I don’t know what to expect honestly.

Dammit, I don’t even particularly like reality show-style forced drama on TV much less in nation-defining government. “Will government agencies completely shut down because of blocked funding?” “Is a President allowed to do whatever he wants even if it’s criminal for the rest of us? Tune in next week to find out!”

But what if people don’t want to see their country jump 100+ years backwards with regards to citizen rights and equality? As of August of last year, “Abortion has been on the ballot in seven states since that landmark court decision one year ago and in each instance, in red states and blue states, anti-abortion advocates have lost.” Also, same-sex marriage has federal legal protection.

This sounds a lot like, “let’s abandon democracy where every vote counts equally and return to ‘might makes right’ by making sure we have the most weapons at hand on election day”.

What a nincompoop.