Politics

[Irishize]

there's no snaggle to them. just a little big and her top lip goes a bit too high lol. doesn't bother me much. especially for a maid that doesn't have to do maid stuff.

and, you can always tell her to keep her mouth shut while she's not doing "maid" stuff.
or... you can just turn out the lights. that would help with the crazy eyes too.

and when she's ready to leave, and ask for $$. just tell her "what, I thought that was free shit, and part of the new pink-deal".

On second glance, it looks like congenitally missing laterals.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Fun week for stupid.

There's Smollett doubling down yet again.

Creepy Strzok and his girl toy saying that the Obama DOJ basically did everything they could to hamper the FBI investigation of Clinton (why aren't CNN and MSNBC reporting this lol).

And no shocker, but AOC saying stupid stuff again.

She wants to destroy capitalism, no matter how asinine and destructive that would be. The first step is to restrict the flow of capital. If someone wanted to do that, there are much more effective ways than some intellectually over matched dumbass making themselves look worse.

 

[Irish YJ]

She wants to destroy capitalism, no matter how asinine and destructive that would be. The first step is to restrict the flow of capital. If someone wanted to do that, there are much more effective ways than some intellectually over matched dumbass making themselves look worse.

How in the hell did she graduate cum laude in econ?
What does that say about Boston U. Would love to see who her econ profs are.

 

[ACamp1900]

How in the hell did she graduate cum laude in econ?
What does that say about Boston U. Would love to see who her econ profs are.

You could make a pretty easy case that pumping out students like her is what makes some of these Universities proud,...

 

[Irish YJ]

You could make a pretty easy case that pumping out students like her is what makes some of these Universities proud,...

There has to be some sensible leadership at Boston U that cringes when she talks about economics. It's just so embarrassing.

 

[Irish#1]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article227531269.html

Gotta love the stupidity in politics. You can't fix stupid.....

911: 911, what's your emergency?
Me: No emergency, just calling in to self report I just blew my load watching some porn.

 

[Irish#1]

There has to be some sensible leadership at Boston U that cringes when she talks about economics. It's just so embarrassing.

Maybe her parents paid for her to get admitted. lol

 

[Irish YJ]

Bernie Sanders speechwriter's 2013 op-eds: 'Let's hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American'
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/be...he-boston-marathon-bomber-is-a-white-american

We already know that the mainstream media and left love a good "evil white" narrative, while deflecting or minimizing hate actions by non-whites, but this is pretty scary. Hoping that any "race" is responsible for such a tragedy for political narrative's sake is just plain disgusting.

 

[connor_in]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’m not big on Tweetstorms, but I suppose if I am ever going to do one, now is the time. 🙂For those who don’t know me: I am the author of several books about <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a>. Been studying it since 2001. Yesterday, E. Warren came out against the E.C., as you’ve prob. heard /1</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048158171504641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">She said: “My view is that every vote matters and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting and that means get rid of the electoral college -- and every vote counts.” The audience broke out in applause. /2</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048213238530049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Well, no wonder. Most have spent a lifetime hearing that the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> is evil (slavery) & outdated (we have airplanes/Internet now!). None of it's true, but people have heard it so often that they simply don't know. Here is the truth: /3</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048267319955456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Founders created the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> because they knew several things we have forgotten: (1) Simple democracies are dangerous. Bare or emotional majorities can tyrannize even large minority groups. Two wolves & a sheep voting on what’s for dinner is not a good system. /4</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048324802818049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">(2) They understood: Humans fallible. Power corrupts. Ambition, selfishness, greed are dangers. Some claim Founders were elitists who didn’t trust the people. NO. They didn’t trust ANYONE. Not the people, not elected officials, not states or feds. Checks & balances on EVERYONE /5</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048391949484034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Carol Berkin states this wonderfully, noting that delegates to Const’l Convention were the most likely men to be elected to 1st Senate or as 1st President….. Yet they still sat and debated how to put checks and balances on those offices bc THEY DIDN’T TRUST THEMSELVES either. /6</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048439101833216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> serves us well: It has several benefits that go unrecognized: 1st: It makes it harder to steal elections. Can’t steal election unless you steal votes in right state @ right time AND national election fairly close. /7</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048507703832577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">With a National Popular Vote system, obviously, any vote stolen anywhere affects national outcome. This is true even if the vote is easily stolen in a very safe blue or red state. This is a dangerous situation that the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> protects us from today. /8</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048552423510016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2nd, the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> rewards coalition-building. Perhaps that sounds weird, after 2016? But NO ONE focused on coalition building that yr, not really. The result? A close election: One party lost. The other mostly avoided losing. But, yes, there was a coalition. & it won. /9</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048589161463808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Coalition that won in 2016 = group of voters who are tired of being ruled by DC elites. They don’t feel heard. They see DC insiders living by one set of rules while we live by another. They are tired of being told what to think. Tired of being called names simply bc disagree /10</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048631205117953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Some of this coalition voted for Trump enthusiastically. Some held noses & voted. But the coalition all agreed he was most likely to upset status quo in D.C. So they voted for him. Right now, Dems are very focused on eliminating <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> that caused them to lose /11</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048680974798848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Better off focusing on why they lost in first place. How can Dems reach out to those who have been feeling ignored? How can they find middle ground? How can they focus on things that bring us together instead of things that drive us apart? How can they regain voters’ trust? /12</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048726554230786?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">How can they run campaign more like FDR? If Dems find that nominee, they will win in a landslide. Similarly, Rs don’t have to be stuck in world where barely win. They, too, should find middle ground. How can they build coalitions? Earn trust? Reward = Reagan-like landslide /13</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048769566806016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I wish that everyone would quit going off into their partisan corners. Quit pointing fingers at the other side. Quit blaming <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> for your party’s own failures. What did your own party do wrong or right in 2016? /14</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048807231672320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">1st party to take hard look inward & fix its own flaws will start winning again. In landslides. We’ve been here before. Aftr Civil War, country was sharply divided bw North & South. Because of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a>, both political parties were forced to move past that division /15</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048938853191682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pretty much whether they wanted to or not! Dems in South simply couldn’t win w/o reaching a hand across the aisle. Rs could win in reliance on their safe areas, but just barely. Both sides had incentives to look at own mistakes, figure out how to build better coalitions. /16</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108048978141155328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">By the 1930s, of course, Dems were winning in repeated landslides. The lesson? Remember that we live in a big, diverse country! Don’t force people into one-size-fits-all thinking. THAT is the lesson the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> has taught over and over again, throughout our history. /17</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108049021984223233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Getting rid of the system now, when we are so angry and divided…. Well, it’s the worst possible solution. We’ll be stuck in this angry place forever. We are better off trying to remember why we have the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectoralCollege?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ElectoralCollege</a> in first place. End of tweetstorm. /18</p>— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaraRoss/status/1108049060089470976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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[connor_in]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lol... as if they would come with no electoral college. She would be in LA, NYC, and Chicago trying to churn out more vote</p>— All Hyped Up on Dragon Energy (@NorwoodBrian) <a href="https://twitter.com/NorwoodBrian/status/1108414631616356353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
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[ACamp1900]

"Nobody comes to Alabama in the general presidential election or to Massachusetts because they figure we're not in the game because of the electoral college."

wtf is she talking about?? Talk about just pandering to the perceived useful idiots... on that note... Beto. I honestly don't know if I can think of another politician that is so see through fake and pure a think tank result than this guy... he's also creepy as hell to me, so there's that...

 

[NorthDakota]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lol... as if they would come with no electoral college. She would be in LA, NYC, and Chicago trying to churn out more vote</p>— All Hyped Up on Dragon Energy (@NorwoodBrian) <a href="https://twitter.com/NorwoodBrian/status/1108414631616356353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Yep. All that'd do is lead to people campaigning in more metros.

 

[ulukinatme]

Somebody rep Connor for me.

 

[Irish YJ]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Has there ever been a Marxist who gained power who didn't immediately upgrade their life?<br><br>Would be a shame if this went viral.<a href="https://t.co/CYVQyooGNK">https://t.co/CYVQyooGNK</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MAGA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ThursdayThoughts?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ThursdayThoughts</a> <a href="https://t.co/Q4Iad091ae">pic.twitter.com/Q4Iad091ae</a></p>— NEW RIGHT NETWORK (@NewRightNetwork) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewRightNetwork/status/1103805513840713730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
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[Irish YJ]

look like some pro-choicer tried to steal an 85 year old's pro-life sign, then beat and kicked him when the old man tried to stop the theft. third time the same guy harassed the old man. late term killing, and now late year beatings...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NEW: Video shows 85-year-old man getting kicked outside of a Planned Parenthood in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SanFrancisco?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SanFrancisco</a>. SFPD investigating. Hear from the 85-year-old about what happened, at 11 on <a href="https://twitter.com/nbcbayarea?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nbcbayarea</a>. <a href="https://t.co/d8chXkfjvR">pic.twitter.com/d8chXkfjvR</a></p>— Ian Cull (@NBCian) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCian/status/1111133809666191360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2019</a></blockquote>
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[ACamp1900]

My wife’s family protest outside of a clinic often. No chanting, no harassment just signs and literature. They welcome the doctors and staff and such when they arrive. You should see/hear the shit that gets thrown at them,... I wish they’d stop only as I’m fully prepared for one of them to be assaulted or worse soon enough.

 

[NorthDakota]

Its who they are. They cant help it.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Walther just published an article titled "The neglected importance of America's small-c constitution":

Nothing is less relevant to understanding how Americans are governed than the text of the Constitution.

This is a bold claim, and one that admits of facile misunderstanding. I do not mean to echo the complaint of so many Tea Partiers that we have at some undisclosed point since 1788 strayed from the hearth of our Founding Fathers. Nor am I suggesting that the United States is or has been lawless. We are governed not according to the moribund Constitution of 1788 but by the present constitution, which, though alive and well, is undergoing one of those periodic revolutions that have given rise to its numerous predecessors since the end of the 18th century.

Let the dead bury the dead Constitution

By our "constitution" I mean what the New Oxford American Dictionary defines as the "body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is acknowledged to be governed." The United States has a constitution. Clearly identifiable principles inform the behavior of state officials and well-defined precedents guide their decision-making. But there is no useful schematic for this familiar machine. No college textbook or Schoolhouse Rock primer could hope to explain the indubitable constitutional roles played by the New Hampshire primary, the White House press briefing, and quasi-public research organizations like RAND and MITRE to a young person or a foreigner. The cleverest political theorists would be hard pressed to explain how the government legally purchases a single nail. Some of the most important documents in the American republic are Microsoft Word files whose precise interpretation will depend upon whether the "Track Change" feature has been enabled. We see the American constitution and live under it but we can barely describe it.

This is in part because we have equivocated too long about the meaning of that word "constitution," prefacing it with an capital letter when one does not belong there. As long as we pretend that what we mean when we say that this or that policy is "unconstitutional" is that it contradicts the text of 1788, or indeed any of the subsequent amendments, we are engaged in a kind of necrolatry. This religious attitude is usually associated with conservative Republicans, but it was not so long ago that MoveOn.org types were said to be communing with the spirits of our hoariest ancestors during the administration of George W. Bush. Under President Trump we are once again witnessing a revival of constitutionalist popular piety among Democrats, who have decided that the direction of congressionally appropriated funds to federal departments is not among the prerogatives of the president.

The relationship between the constitutional text and the actual constitution might be compared to that between a document written in code and the key used to decipher it. It is possible, of course, to devise an encrypted text capable of yielding more than one seemingly intelligible meaning according to the key that is used. A simple code such as "101" will mean something radically different according to whether the 1 is said to stand for W or T and the 0 for O or A. The code of 1788 has admitted itself capable of any number of interpretations, but as these have multiplied the text itself has proven far less important than the deciphering apparatus. It is as if a general, hoping to find reinforcements along his right flank rather than news of a surrender, not only ordered his aide-de-camp to devise a new cipher but in the act of doing so willed the longed-for auxiliaries into existence. Our constitutional revolutions are a triumph of magical thinking.

The fact that our revolutions have grounded themselves in the order they were superseding should not surprise. We do not find it baffling that Roman emperors preserved the republican offices of state hundreds of years after the revolution or that the businessmen who control the Communist Party of China still refuse to dispense with the legal fiction that they are paid-up Marxist-Leninists. "Human kind," T.S. Eliot said, "cannot bear very much reality."

The five revolutions

In looking at American history I can detect five overlapping but nevertheless distinct constitutional revolutions.

The first and most significant, the one that supplied the legal machinery out of which all subsequent constitutional structures would be assembled, came in 1803 with Marbury v. Madison, which declared that the Supreme Court would now have the authority to decide not merely whether a man was guilty of a crime but whether his crime, or indeed any crimes, even existed. With the distance of so many centuries, it has become almost impossible to convey to readers the audacity of John Marshall, who single-handedly transformed a humble sinecure for old-fashioned circuit-riding common law judges into a college of constitutional augurs sequestered in Washington, D.C. More than two centuries on, there is no activity in politics more important than their yearly inspection of the entrails. The struggle between — for example — opponents and proponents of abortion into which so much of political decision-making has been subsumed in the last 40 years, is a result of this ill-considered power grab.

Marshall's revolution is something we never discuss as such, least of all those of us who endorse so-called "originalist" and "textualist" theories of constitutional interpretation. For the earnest conservative student of jurisprudence who believes that an entire branch of government exists for the purpose of constitutional divination, it is deadly to concede that there is no textual warrant for such activity. Marbury was itself what originalists call "judicial overreach." If this were more widely admitted the whole philosophy would collapse under the weight of its lugubrious platitudes, revealing the same fideism of which Anthony Kennedy and other liberal jurists have been accused. For originalists, as for everyone else, it's turtles all the way down.

The next constitutional revolution came only a few more decades into the life of the new republic. I mean of course what historians call "Jacksonian democracy." With the advent of universal white male suffrage, the whole body of Founding-era constitutional thought becomes a dead letter. The quasi-Roman republicanism of the Founders was replaced by a frontier populism. Tithes paid to established state religions, which had somehow survived the ratification of the First Amendment, disappeared along with central banking. Judges became the creatures of the populace. Endless expansion and spoliation and even murder were official policy. Human beings remained property under the new dispensation on the basis of their descent from African ancestors.

It was ultimately the last of these iniquities that would lead half a century later to the third lasting constitutional revolution, that of Lincoln, the log-cabin Pericles who would suspend habeas corpus and imprison journalists in pursuit of government by the people and for the people. More than anything else Lincolnism was the triumph of a radically new conception of the United States. No longer was there a loose confederation of coonskin-capped brawlers drawing up whiskey deeds and gravel-voiced Yankees presiding over town meetings, but a proto-Bismarckian state based in Washington, D.C., with the authority to tax citizens on their income. Even grammar yielded before the stolidity of the new settlement. From the 1860s on, we no longer find journalists and historians writing that "the United States are"; the constitutionally inadequate plural becomes an ungrammatical singular and has remained so.

So far we have, except in our initial visit to the Marshall estate, remained well within the safe territory of official history, even conservative history. With the exception of a handful of subscribers to Chronicles magazine, no one has seriously argued in the last 50 or so years that Lincoln's revolution was anything but "constitutional." It has been held compatible with originalism and indeed held up as the basis for an entire branch of right-wing historiography. So far as I am aware there exists no coterie, not even in the hinterlands of online paleoconservatism, that supports a reversal of Jacksonian democracy or finds in the expansion of the franchise to those who do not own property an antinomian betrayal of the Founding.

To find what the modern right considers the original sin we must look beyond slavery and emancipation to the long administrative revolution of Woodrow Wilson and the two Roosevelts. The most radical conservative politicians and commentators have long argued that the goal of their movement was the eventual reversal of all the innovations they find embodied in the New Deal. There can be, I think, no readier indictment of that movement and its supposed prophets than the utter failure of this ambition despite, and perhaps even because of, the long periods in which its supposed adherents have controlled the federal government. Getting rid of Social Security is probably impossible. It would certainly be, in the sense in which the word ought to be used, unconstitutional.

Of all the heroes of American revolutions there is perhaps none so romantic as the figure of Franklin Roosevelt, our own bound Prometheus. Here is the man who brought fire to the people, who in welcoming the hatred of the powerful had declared war on their gods and won. The intransigence of the New Deal-era Supreme Court was the last cry of the exhausted Olympians.

But the glorious myth of Roosevelt is not belied by the reality. His revolution, which created a permanent architecture for the federal government and a new role for it in directing economic activity towards the common good, provided the constitutional order that would undergird what has become known as the post-war consensus. The period from 1945 until the late 1960s was the greatest expansion of peace and prosperity that the world had ever seen. Its governing assumptions — the welfare state, the mixed economy, cooperation between major industries and the state, a slow but civic-minded determination to right ancient wrongs — united presidents regardless of party. The last one to embody this great dream was Richard Nixon, who gave us the Environmental Protection Agency and would have also, had it not been for the Watergate investigation, passed basic income and universal health coverage. "Tory men and liberal policies," he said, "are what have changed the world."

The beginning of the end of the post-war consensus, and of the Rooseveltian constitution that had made it possible, is almost universally attributed to the wrong man. It was Jimmy Carter, the would-be folk hero of peanuts and malaise, who set in motion the atomization whose consequences we continue to live with even now. Ronald Reagan's valor was mostly of the stolen variety. It was Carter who destroyed all the comfortable old federally approved monopolies that made oil, telecommunications, railroads, trucking, and air travel well-regulated, quasi-nationalized industries. He also bequeathed almost limitless power to the Federal Reserve. In attempting to overcome the undeniable inertia of old arrangements Carter invited a new one in which the only movement would be in the direction of profit. It would not be until Bill Clinton's presidency, however, that neoliberalism would find its greatest champion in the man who gutted the welfare state, codified limitless greed and irresponsibility in our financial system by repealing Glass-Steagall, and destroyed American industry, probably forever, with NAFTA.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Before considering the present situation, it is worth making some further general remarks about the features, incidental or otherwise, of American constitutional revolution.

The first is that with every revolution comes an archetypal new man, a figure who embodies the ascendant order, who by some admixture of temperament, education, and luck, both understands and rules by means of the prevailing constitutional technologies. What the slave-owning farmer-statesmen of Virginia were to 1788, the so-called Wise Men of the WASP establishment were to the post-war order inaugurated by Roosevelt. When Henry Adams lamented that classics and history had not prepared him for the age of the dynamo, he might as well have been speaking for the university-trained professional who cannot program a single line of code or speak the language of the global consultant class. Our Hamiltons and Madisons are Davos-going tech CEOs, not throwbacks like Rick Santorum or enthusiasts like Barack Obama.

Another even more important point is that while some of our revolutions have tended to reverse the course of earlier ones, they have always done so without actually discarding the governing technologies that they introduced. Lincoln may have created the federal government as we now understand it, but he did so without discarding the Jacksonian-era program of universal white male suffrage, which he in fact attempted to expand. Likewise, the neoliberals may well have believed that the era of big government was over, but they responded to this new perceived reality by modestly reducing the size and scope of the administrative state — or by allowing its older roles to deteriorate without oversight, as in the case of the Department of Education, which once advanced modest sums to aspiring college graduates but is now the enforcer of generation-wide debt slavery — rather than by eliminating it. Nothing is ever lost except purpose.

This is why the constitution is full of odd and at times even inexplicable holdovers from previous eras, like the pointlessly bicameral legislature, or the Electoral College, which gives the odd impression that we are a ragtag confederation of independent states rather than a centralized administrative republic. It is also why there is hardly a single person on Earth who can explain something as seemingly straightforward as how the government buys something. We are bad at taking out institutional garbage, but we are very good at constitutional recycling.

Götterdämmerung?

In 2019 we find ourselves watching as the legislative branch is subsumed into the authority of the executive. The unlimited powers that George W. Bush's advisors claimed for the presidency both at home and abroad in a supposed time of war were inherited by President Obama, who laid waste to Libya and remade our immigration system with the stroke of a pen. For the past two years on trade, foreign policy, the border, and every other issue of importance, President Trump has been able to govern effectively without the assistance of Congress. The same powers will be used, perhaps with even greater effect, by the party now in opposition when they inevitably return to the White House. We are inexorably engaged in a sixth constitutional revolution, one that will, I think, sooner or later culminate in the de facto abolition of the federal legislature. The self-consciously meaningless gestures of anti-executive defiance that began with the congressional GOP under Obama will continue apace until the whole thing has become a bathetic ritual, like the annual White House turkey pardon.

What will this mean? It may be that the sixth revolution will reverse the decentralization of the post-Carter neoliberal constitution. In the place of a CEO who presides over the apportioning of the United States and those parts of the globe within her sphere of influence to global capital we might have a Bonaparte who codifies the grievances of post-industrial America and uses his imperial prerogative to redress the evils visited upon her citizens by technology, alienation, and addiction. This was no doubt the hope of many old comrades of Eternal Trumpism.

It seems to me more likely, though, that we are witnessing another revolution of continuity and development, like that of Roosevelt, which simply refined the old Lincolnian base metals into something sharper. The new all-powerful executive will very likely use his or her unchecked authority not to upend the power of capital but to solidify it forever. The intermittent populisms of the past will continue to find a voice, if at all, in an increasingly powerless legislature. The saga of Brexit in the United Kingdom has shown us that under neoliberalism constitutional revolution from below is impossible. We should not expect it to come from above either, at least not in any form we would hope for.

Only a god-emperor can still save us.

Apologies to RDU as this isn't the type of article that can be summarized by bolding a couple key paragraphs.

 

[Irish YJ]

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[NorthDakota]

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I think she's having a lot of trouble coming to terms with the fact that her ideas bring a lot of ridicule. People talk about The Don having mental problems, which I dont know. At least he's an old guy. This bish is not even 30 yet and looks like she's lost all sanity.

 

[Irish#1]

And here is CNN claiming AOC is making history buy building IKEA furniture and taking questions at the same time. This is an insult to other women who have put together IKEA furniture. Lazy and agenda reporting by CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...ea-furniture-live-instagram-moos-pkg-ebof.cnn

 

[NorthDakota]

Pocahantas just said Dems win every election when there is no voter suppression. That's a hot take.

 

[Irish#1]

Is she taking anytime to actually work on legislation or just using it to run her mouth?

 

[ulukinatme]

Was watching South Park last night. This clip was from 20 years ago, but damn if it wasn't as true today as it was then.

<iframe width="512" height="288" src="https://www.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=NfE2X8CTRrSIEhQPy-cCqw&partner=southpark&sourceUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fsouthpark.cc.com%2Fclips%2F152367%2Fa-whole-lot-worse%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3Td90qa2h1yKHl4yz5253KUCVSUwKtqxCvElifiRSaM0SMxVBZb31rvnU&embed_age_gate_intro=false&enable_mature_intro=false" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>

[EDIT] Doesn't look like it wants to embed: http://southpark.cc.com/clips/152367/a-whole-lot-worse

 

[Irish#1]

OMG it is dead on. What ever happened to Rosie O'Donnell? Her 15 minutes expire?

 

[ulukinatme]

OMG it is dead on. What ever happened to Rosie O'Donnell? Her 15 minutes expire?

Think she got in a Twitter war with the Donald during or before the campaign. Probably said something about him never being President.

 

[NorthDakota]

Anyone see the video of AOC pulling a Hillary? Did a verbal blackface during her speech today. It was painful to listen to. I saw one guy on twitter refer to it as "GerryPandering" and it was fitting.

 

[Irish#1]

Apparently Obama isn't too found of what's happening with his fellow demo's. He sees what Repub's are seeing. Here is part of the article. Here's the link if you care top read the full article.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...s-democrats-circular-firing-squad/3398051002/

Obama warns Democrats that ideological 'rigidity' can lead to a 'circular firing squad'
William Cummings, USA TODAY Published 8:41 a.m. ET April 8, 2019 | Updated 9:12


Former President Barack Obama speaks to young leaders from across Europe in a town hall event on April 06, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.
Former President Barack Obama speaks to young leaders from across Europe in a town hall event on April 06, 2019 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo: Sean Gallup, Getty Images)

WASHINGTON – Former President Barack Obama warned Democrats about the dangers of rigid ideological dogmatism, which he said can lead to a "circular firing squad" at an Obama Foundation event in Berlin on Saturday.

Obama made the comment while discussing the importance of compromise in a functioning democracy at the town hall-style forum with "emerging European leaders."

"One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States, maybe it's true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, 'Ah, I'm sorry, this is how it's gonna be.' And then we start sometimes creating what's called a circular firing squad where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens," Obama said.

The former Democratic president's warning comes as his party appears increasingly divided between left-wing politicians such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who espouse democratic socialism, and more moderate Democrats advocating more incremental reforms.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Walther just published an article titled "The Supreme Court is the real Senate--for now":

The American Constitution is a fossil record. Beneath the rocky soil one finds layer upon layer of strange deposits, atavistic survivors of bygone eras, such as the Electoral College. One of the most curious specimens preserved in the sediment is the United States Senate.

Why does it continue to exist? With the ratification of the 17th amendment, the Senate's raison d'être was eliminated. Bicameralism has always called for a body of common representatives elected by the people and a revising upper chamber of appointed grandees. The former, as constitutional theorists have long argued, are prone to enthusiasms that must be checked by the wisdom and prudence of the latter, even — indeed, especially — when doing so might prove unpopular. Having two distinct bodies that are both said to directly represent the will of the same electorate is on its face nonsensical. (This is the argument often made against reforms that would turn the British House of Lords into a purely elected body.) The few powers the Senate continues to enjoy might easily be given to the House — or dispensed with altogether. Indeed, the most important of these, the ability to confirm judicial and other presidential appointments, is becoming purely ceremonial.

This is not to suggest that we no longer have a de facto upper chamber. The real Senate of the United States meets not in the north wing of the Capitol but just across First Street. I mean, of course, the Supreme Court.

Why is this not explicitly acknowledged, I wonder? Are the nine not appointed rather than elected? And do they not legislate, at times clarifying, at other points frustrating the will of the two lower chambers? When we read about the outcome of a case before the court we are told how the justices "voted." This should put paid to everything our middle school civics teachers tell us about the separation of powers and the disinterestedness of the judicial process. A perfect illustration of this is NFIB v. Sebelius in 2012, when, after some horse trading between Chief Justice Roberts and his liberal colleagues, the Supreme Court essentially revised the Affordable Care Act. This is exactly what upper bodies are supposed to do in bicameral legislatures.

There is nothing especially strange about this. The rise of the senatorial high court was a simple matter of competing pressures, of finding a new outlet for constitutional energies when older channels were suddenly closed.

This is why I find it difficult to make sense of conservative complaints about "legislating from the bench," which under President Trump are increasingly becoming the province of liberals and progressives as well. It is also why I find it so easy to understand the arguments being revived by the latter in favor of so-called "court packing," a scheme to increase the number of seats on the court in order to counteract what they imagine will be an imminent conservative super-majority.

Remaking the composition of the upper chamber has been a ubiquitous threat in Anglophone constitutional disputes. It was nearly carried out in 1832 by King William IV, who needed Whig peers in the Tory-dominated House of Lords in order to ensure the passage of the Great Reform Bill. It has reared its head in Britain again very recently with the rise of life peerages and the expulsion of all but a small token representation of hereditary peers. In this country the size of the de facto upper chamber has been altered many times, including by President Lincoln, who appointed a Unionist 10th justice at the height of the Civil War. After the war the number of justices dropped to seven and would have returned to the original number of six if it had not been for the Judiciary Act of 1869. Franklin D. Roosevelt famously tried to expand it to as many as 15 in 1937.

When the idea is revived in earnest, I expect it to involve the creation of a vast number "term" justices, who will serve for four or six years, and the phasing out of lifetime appointments. This will make members of the court the explicit creatures of the party in control of the White House.

Such a scheme would certainly be in keeping with other constitutional trends. Like those of the House and the nominal Senate, the prerogatives of our quasi-judicial upper chamber are fast disappearing. The legacy of the court's quasi-legislative rulings on the most central questions of our age obscures our ability to see a new pattern emerging, one that involves a broad deference to the executive branch — especially toward decisions made by the various administrative bodies whose authority flows directly from the presidency.

Making predictions is often a mug's game. I would not presume to suggest that I know exactly what American government will look like in 20 or 30 years. But the movement of our politics, not simply during the last 20 or so years but for the entire history of the American republic, has been a march in the direction of executive power.

This should not be surprising. It is scarcely ever remembered that for many of the men of 1776 the great enemy was not King George III but rather the British Parliament, which had wrongfully presumed to govern the colonies in his stead. What their revolution sought to undo was the Hanoverian settlement of 1688-9, not the principle of monarchy itself. It is debatable whether they accomplished this immediately. That their ambition will be sooner or later fulfilled, however, seems to me beyond argument.

What is even clearer to me is that this is more or less what the American people want. Everyone has his token arguments against the power of the executive when the faction he opposes holds court in the ovular throne room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; no sooner has their preferred candidate received the purple, however, than they perform the mental jujitsu necessary to justify executive omnipotence. Sometimes the argument is merely that Congress is recalcitrant or otherwise negligent in performing its ordinary duties, such as the passage of budget resolutions; occasionally it is that we have reached some kind of crisis that cannot be resolved through ordinary democratic means. This is all nonsense. When Barack Obama remakes our immigration system, including the de facto definition of citizenship, with the stroke of a pen or when Donald Trump appropriates unobligated funding from the Department of Defense, they are doing what they were elected to do.

No one in particular is to blame for this. The divisions in American society are well-nigh unbridgeable. We do not disagree about the kind of prudential questions the democratic process is supposed to adjudicate — indeed, there is widespread agreement such matters as whether we should invest in new infrastructure, whether generational debt servitude is a good idea, whether we ought to have a less financialized economy with higher median wages, and whether the provision of health care should continue to be an unstructured and unaffordable mess. Not so when it comes to loftier questions about what constitutes human life, say, or the definition of marriage and the nature of family life.

Everyone wants his own Caesar. This may be a failure of our collective imagination. It may be a necessary centralizing response to the complexities of modern life. It may be a belated post-Enlightenment concession to the wisdom of the Middle Ages. It might simply be the true inheritance of our Founding Fathers. It is difficult to say. But it is also undeniable and, very likely, inexorable.

Sooner or later every institution, even one as seemingly omnipotent as the Supreme Court, will bow before the Resolute desk.

 

[connor_in]

ummmm...yeah, so there is this now

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">War! Over clowns or frogs or...something <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LeftLunacyOnParade?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LeftLunacyOnParade</a> <a href="https://t.co/w5sDk1ygvh">pic.twitter.com/w5sDk1ygvh</a></p>— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1115291398322786304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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