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November 18, 2022 10:43 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 42 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“National honor is the national property of the highest value.”

–James Monroe

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42 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Honor.

    What a notion.

    Now the mid-term elections are behind us. Anyone who predicted the "Red Wave" is pretty much still feasting on heapin' helpings of crow.

    I think I see in those results, a clear realization that honor…honesty…compassion are the missing ingredients in Americas' struggle to reflect its promise and its purpose.

    If you haven't seen the response from Pew-Pews' mouth to Adam Frischs' concession, I hope you don't. Graciousness is far too big a word for that cheesy train wreck of a woman to have a clue about it.

    Nothing much will change, except she will cement her career as a RWNJ show pony and Evangelical darling. On that note, however, I forsee the possibility of a shift in the loyalties of our Congressionl Golddigger. It seems many in the Christian Evangelical influence industry are taking this opportunity to join the right wing Christian exodus away from the Orange Destruction. If Boebert is faced with a choice between Jesus and Fat Donnie from Queens, I wonder which direction she will slide?

    Jesus pays better, but Fat Donnie gets most of the press…

    Hmmm…

  3. Just digging into Erwin Chemerinksy's new book, "Worse than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism."  So far it's a great takedown of the ridiculousness of originalism, which sadly has taken hold of much of the federal judiciary.  About 1/3 of the way through it, and from what I've read so far, I highly recommend it.  Unfortunately, the federal judges (and other federalist society members) that need to read it, probably won't.

    2. The problem is selective originalism.

      The constitution has never been color blind – quite the opposite.

      Slavery and the 3/5ths of a person rule was based on skin color is obviously and originally in the constitution. And the 13th, 14th &15th amendments specifically deal with racial categories.

        1. These are judges playing bad amateur historians, and cherry-picking history to suit results-oriented decisionmaking.  And the Court's clearly ignores the racial historical context when it suits its desired result.  

           

  4. Colorado’s CO-03 House race between Lauren Boebert and Adam Frisch effectively ended yesterday, with Frisch conceding after all of the votes were in and counted.  He lost by 554 votes — In a district drawn with active voter registrations of “31% Republican, 25% Democratic and 43% unaffiliated,” and showing a 9% Republican average advantage in 8 recent statewide races.  So what does that look like?

    …………………..PARTY…….ACTIVE REG…..% OF REG………VOTES…..PERCENTAGE

    Adam Frisch…..DEM………116,221…………….23.56%………….163,278……49.92%

    Lauren Boebert.REP……….151,166…………….30.65%………….163,832……50.08%

    DIFFERENCE………………….34,945………………7.09%………………554……..0.159%

    Why did virtually everyone miss that this would be a highly competitive race?  One editorial columnist offers 10 reasons experts missed Adam Frisch’s viability against Lauren Boebert

    Number eight: A broad coalition. Critical to putting the district in play, Frisch pulled local leaders together. He brought on board his Democratic challenger, Boebert’s Republican primary challenger and even an independent candidate who was formerly Republican. All endorsed him in solidarity to defeat Boebert.

  6. Boebert, in her victory claim:

    “With this victory and with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, we can focus on the issues that actually matter most, including getting inflation under control, increasing our domestic energy supply, securing the southern border and being a strong check on the White House,” Boebert said in a video posted to Twitter.

    And if you believe a House Republican agenda, with a narrow majority (222 versus 213 seems likely) can do ANYTHING to get inflation under control, increase domestic energy, or secure the southern border, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of basic civics, macroeconomics, corporate governance in the energy industry, physical security, and the causes of migration.  And it could well be that the idea the House Republicans can organize an agenda or do anything at all is also at odds with reality.

    They can investigate the workforce of the White House — and I hope they get more cooperation than the Trump Sad!-ministration provided.  But the outcome is likely to be tales of purely partisan attack and defense, with little ability to legislate from whatever they find.

  7. Milady and moi just sent a c-note to the Warnock campaign.  He was one of 9 national candidates we backed: five won Nevada, AZ, CO, NH, PA, 

    We lost in NC, Fl
    WI and Ohio.

    Yes, this was mostly the quest for a majority.  But Warnock is very special.  I am proud to stand in his ranks against wife-beating abortion boy win, lose or runoff.  

    3. Perhaps you should be more selective in where you're giving money, VG. I backed three national candidates and all three won:

      Michael Bennet, Colorado.  Mark Kelly, Arizona.  Adam Schiff, California

      Thought about funding Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who also won. But I chose to keep the money closer to home. My focus now is finishing off the 2022 charitable giving cycle.

       

      1. Well, without Warnock and Fetterman we would have both chambers fascist.  We also weighed in on Caraveo, 

        Petterson and the AG,Sos , treasurer Trifecta.

        1. I appreciate your feedback. The bulk of my available coin goes out as charitable gifts to various non-profits. My way of being able to write off my property taxes and it's also a feel-good thing. Not much left for campaigns.

  8. The Federalist Society controls the federal judiciary, so why can’t they stop whining? Ian Milhiser at Vox.

    Ian Milhiser is always worth reading. Probably the best legal writer out there. Here he describes his attendance at this years' Federalist Society conference.

    Conservative intellectualism has mostly walked off a cliff. Today it's a tension between christian nationalists, culture wars and John Galt fascism. But, if there is ANY conservative intellectual tradition left, the Federalist Society is both holding the torch and has significant political power within the judiciary.

    The Federalist Society knows how to hold a grudge.

    In 1987, in a bipartisan 58-42 vote, the Senate voted to reject conservative Judge Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Thirty-five years later, the Federalist Society is still bitter. Indeed, this year’s convention concluded with an hourlong “Hon. Robert H. Bork Memorial Lecture,” in which federal appellate Judge A. Raymond Randolph compared Bork to Albert Einstein.

    “One of the Democrats’ main attacks was that Judge Bork was out of the legal mainstream,” Randolph lamented, before claiming that attack “has no intellectual content,” that it “tells us nothing about truth,” and proclaiming that Einstein “was out of the scientific mainstream, and thank God he was.”

    Randolph’s rage centered on the fact that Bork was judged not on the basis of his exceptional intellectual accomplishments, but instead on how his far-right political views would lead him to reshape the law (among many other things, Bork wrote in 1963 that federal legislation banning whites-only lunch counters is rooted in a “principle of unsurpassed ugliness”).

    When Bork was up for confirmation, Randolph decried, “it didn’t matter that the Supreme Court had never reversed any of Bob’s judicial opinions.” Or that The Antitrust Paradox, a book authored by Bork, “had by that time defined the mainstream of antitrust law.”

    Randolph’s defense of Bork was echoed by other Federalist Society speakers, including Northwestern University law professor John McGinnis, who railed against opponents of Bork’s confirmation who deemed the judge unfit for the Supreme Court despite the fact that he “had been Solicitor General of the United States, a professor at Yale Law School, and author of the most influential book on antitrust law in the history of the subject.”

    Bork was, indeed, one of the conservative legal movement’s greatest intellects. He was one of the most significant — quite possibly the most significant — antitrust scholars in American history. The conservative legal movement sent America its best mind, and the Senate took one look at his conservatism and said “no thanks.”

    The fact that the Federalist Society still seethes over this lost political fight, more than three decades later, is a microcosm for the need for respect and acceptance from elite institutions that animates so much of the society’s rhetoric.

    1. Bork was rejected by a bi-partisan majority of 58.  One Republican Senator who WANTED to support the Republican nominee, who had clerked for a judge who was by the year of the nomination fight was the chief judge of the Circuit Court where Bork served, voted against him, saying

      ''I searched the record. I looked at this distinguished jurist, and I cannot find in him the record of compassion, of sensitivity and understanding of the pleas of the people to enable him to sit on the highest Court of the land.''

      Also involved — Bork was the member of the DoJ who carried out Nixon's order to fire the Watergate Independent Counsel, after two others refused and resigned rather than carry out Nixon's demand.

      1. In fairness to Bork, he also offered to resign.  Former AG Elliot Richardson and deputy ag William Ruckleshouse talked him out of it because somebody had to mind the store.

         

        1. Version I've read from a couple of sources is Bork was willing to fire Cox, outrage erupted, and then Bork offered to resign.

          That was when Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus convinced Bork to stay to avoid an entirely rudderless DoJ.

      1. Why am I not surprised that the shooting occurred at an LGBTQ club. Despite the heavy presence of far right wing Christo-fascist organizations in the Springs, there is a thriving gay community there.

        If I gambled more than occasionally buying a scratch ticket or driving I-25, I’d wager that the shooter is from one of the local hate groups. 

        1. It is difficult to respond to political issues this morning in the wake of such violent insanity as took place in CO Sprgs last night..but that act has, I suspect, a political component, as well as being propelled by hate.  I haven't familiarized myself with the details…they will permeate my awareness soon, I am certain.

          But..Mike Pence is spreading a stench across the airwaves ( the likes of which we have never seen) 😉, filling every olfactory orifice with a reek of cowardly equivocation.

          Much like Trumpstench, it is revolting.

          As my good friend V. suggests in these situations… move upwind, my friends.

           

           

           

          1. I've been thinking about Tribel and Mastodon. Also thinking about cutting social media time drastically, though I don't think I'm ready for cold turkey. It's possible to dodge the worst parts of human nature in the short-term, but they always seem to find their way into things!

            1. Hard to say which alternative will be come the most active – Mastodon, Counter Social, others. But Musk has doomed Twitter with his idiocy. Really unfortunate – has been a good platform for the exchange of a lot of ideas and information. 

              1. Agreed. I wouldn't want to base my worldview on Twitter, but I get lots of takes on lots of things faster than solely relying on mainstream media. And I fully understand much of what reaches social media is stolen/borrowed from mainstream media.

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