Monday Open Thread

20 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. Interesting

   https://coloradosun.com/2022/12/05/steve-wells-jared-polis-2022/

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   1. So his take aways were he should have shoved more money into the fire sooner. 

      Two: they are going full steam on culture war moral panic school boards and "nonpartisan" offices where they don't have to disclose they are crazy with an R next to their name.

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2. In local news, Gilpin County's only Republican Commissioner Web Sill died last week. Sill had a two-term stint back when I moved here at the turn of the century and helped us build a really nice rec center. In his current term he's been more right-leaning, turning down expenses needed to keep us safe with climate change conditions among other things. Sill represented District 1, which covers the south end of the county including Black Hawk and Central City.

   The Republican vacancy committee will have until next week to announce a replacement. District 1 is the stronghold of Republicans here, so there should be candidates available. The new commissioner will still be in the minority, so even if they send a complete whacko the damage should be minimal.

   https://www.themtnear.com/articles/in-memory-of-commissioner-web-sill/

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3. I see that Roger Edwards' orange god called for "termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" over the weekend. Way to go, wingnuts! As they say on the internet, keep fuckin' that chicken.

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4. TFG has called for the scrapping of the US Constitution because of Hunter Biden, Benghazi, something, something:

   "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution"

   I hope CO journalists will get definitive responses from Boebert, Buck, and Lamborn about whether they would still vote for him if he became the GOP 2024 nominee.

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5. The Republican Party is a Failed State; And Trump is its Warlord. Josh at TPM.

   What happens to a failed state or a mafia organization when you remove the warlord? Another one takes its place. 

   One clear takeaway from the 2022 midterm is that a majority of voters are wary of Republican extremism and authoritarianism. As long as Republicans don’t abandon the extremism of Trumpism — and there’s little sign that that is anywhere on the horizon — Democrats should keep it front and center, in front of voters at every opportunity. Put simply, they should use it to defeat Republicans just as they used it to defeat Big Lie supporters last month.

   What Republicans elected officials think and say is really all that matters. Because the only meaningful metric, the only potential impact of any of this is whether it makes Republican elected officials more likely to lose office. What you think, what you jump up and down about, doesn’t matter. We know what you think. Everyone knows what you think. What matters is forcing Republican elected officials to make a choice between Trump or the Constitution or make them objects of popular contempt for their public refusal to do so. For now they cannot abandon Trump. As Trump becomes more aggressive in his sedition, that will endanger more Republican elected officials.

   Donald Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party. He is the frontrunner to be the party’s presidential nominee again in 2024. He is the Republican Party unless and until the bulk of Republican elected officials clearly say otherwise. Last week we saw all these headlines about how Republicans were turning on Trump in droves over his dinner with anti-Semitic influencers Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. This was not close to being true. The criticisms amounted to versions of “I sure hope he chooses better dinner companions!” or “He sure has learned his lesson now!”

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   1. The model of the current Republican Party is to be a Trumper in the sheets and quasi-normal Republican on the streets. By upping the ante yet again and calling for the overthrow of the Constitution itself Trump has given Democrats another cudgel to make that two-step flimflam unsustainable. It’s just a matter of using it.

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   2. From Emptywheel:

      Trump’s a mob boss whose omertà has started to fail.

      Don’t get me wrong. Trump is dangerous as hell, and his mob will continue to pursue political violence whether or not Trump faces accountability. Trump will not melt away and even if he did those liberated from his control may prove to be more dangerous without even something as squalid as Trump to believe in.

      But he is also, at this moment, as vulnerable as he has been in at least a decade.

      And to a significant extent, his increasingly shrill wails are an attempt to hide that.

      Yes, they are also an attempt to mobilize political violence to reverse that vulnerability. But we would do far better to describe all the ways he can no longer deliver his part of the bargain — impunity — than to willfully serve as content mules for his words of incitement.

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6. The deranged Supreme Court case that threatens US democracy, explained Via Ian Milhiser at vox.com

   Ian Milhiser is an excellent analyst of Supreme Court issues.

   The opening brief in Moore v. Harper, an extraordinarily high-stakes election case that the Supreme Court will hear December 7, is one of the least persuasive documents that I’ve ever read in any context. And I’ve read both Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal.

   Moore is also potentially the biggest threat to free and fair elections in the United States to reach the Supreme Court in my lifetime — and I was alive for Bush v. Gore. Four justices have endorsed the utterly nonsensical legal theory underlying Moore, which means that, unless one of those four has second thoughts, the future of US elections will be decided by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

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   1. The whole point of the judicial branch is enforce consistency in the rules written by the legislative branch and executed by the executive branch. This is basic American government functionality at any level of government.

      But the folks arguing for the "independent state legislature doctrine" think that, in the case of laws around elections, only the state senators and state congressfolk can do ANYTHING with laws around elections then only the federal supreme court would rule on the consistency enforcement? What a bunch of bullshittery!

      My "favorite" part about this case in particular is this:

      …even if the independent state legislature doctrine is valid, North Carolina’s courts are still allowed to decide gerrymandering cases because the state legislature told them to do so.

       What a bunch of nerds!

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   2. Agreed that this is the biggest threat to our democracy.  It’s one thing to adopt voter suppression laws — they can be circumvented by standing in line for hours.  (I think voters should be paid $20/hour, an IRS rate for filing IRS forms, if it takes longer than one hour to vote.)  But, there is no remedy if a state legislature can disregard (i.e., nullify) election results. 

      Democracy.  Pass it on.

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   3. If the Moore v. Harper opinion emerges as irresponsibly as it could be, I suspect it may well be another instance of the Republican Party getting a "victory" in the Supreme Court … and then finding attempts to use such power would create an immediate and extraordinary backlash among citizens — the voters who were denied their majority AND the nonvoters who remember their education about "majority rule."

      Plus, it could well be the impetus that unifies those wanting reforms of the Supreme Court. Rather than splits among the various reforms, it could well result in some effective coalition of those wanting "limited term," filibuster (of some sort) in the Senate, imposing an ethics code, expansion of the Court, and "carve outs" asserting the Court has no jurisdiction in some areas. 

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7. Hunter's laptop has a dick pic on it?! No wonder Jim Jordan wants it so bad.

   You heard about this weekend's twitter free speach crusade that Elmo and Matt Taibbi are pushing? It's about Twitter's decision not to allow troll accounts to post pictures of Hunter's "hog"

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   1. No wonder Jim Sweaty Gym Shorts Jordan wants it so bad.

      I fixed it for you, Park Hill.

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8. Alito is the frontrunner for the SCOTUS Clueless Nerd of the Year award.

   He was trying to show some levity when talking about black children dressing in KKK white sheets, as well as making a crack about Ashley Madison website and Justice Kagan.

   The only thing that would have put it over the top was Clarence Thomas asking about the pubic hair on the Coke can.

    

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9. I’m learning about how the new GA voting laws have made it much more difficult to vote. For example, you have to print out an absentee voter application, sign, mail in and wait for your ballot to arrive in the mail.  Many people (especially young people) don’t even own printers anymore.  Drop boxes were located within polling centers open only during office hours, etc.  My daughter in ATL has to vote first thing tomorrow because of these restrictions. 
   Those on this site who pointed to large early voting numbers are fools to believe that voting restrictions don’t restrict voting.

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   1. I’m in Atlanta this week and it’s been raining all day and forecast for more tomorrow.  The God(deesses) have spoken. The Republicans must stand for hours in the rain tomorrow to vote 🤣

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      1. You're breakin' my heart, Michael. Poor MAGAts, they might melt.

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10. Voting is often like a race and I don't like that either. Relax and play slop io.

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11. nice

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