The current trend of the Supremacist Court - sorry, Supreme Court - is that if a right isn’t explicitly granted by the Constitution, it’s State laws that matter. ( Where are Federal Laws in this mix? completely out of contention. If Congress takes a stand, the Court will simply say “No. It’s not something they even thought about 250 years ago, so it’s not your job.” )
If Dems want to actually turn the country back into a functional democracy, it’s the States that’ll have to do it, not the Presidency or Congress. We are no longer guided from the top down, we are being dragged from the bottom up - and the GOP knows how to manipulate enough elections at the bottom to control the floodwaters, regardless of what the flood destroys.
They won’t do it on their first day. They will absolutely do it once they also have the White House. At that point, they can ensure de-facto one-party rule with the blessing of their handpicked court.
This is why Cunningham lost in NC, and why there are only 50 D senators. They ran the most generic democrat possible, he was winning because Tillis was a trash fire, and then Cunningham couldn’t keep it in his pants and gave Tillis something to run on.
I’ve started framing it in terms of “the right to self-determination.” This covers not only body autonomy (abortion, gender affirming care, even gender presentation) but also the right to decide when your life ends, issues of consent, religious issues, and other social concerns. Note, of course, that this is not the “rugged individualism” espoused by the libertarians.
When I was at UT-Austin, the student paper there had a cartoonist named Tom King (not that Tom King) – one of the funniest comics I ever read was one he did for Valentine’s Day. The cupid (ok, the putto) ran out of love arrows in his quiver, and went with the next one available which was labeled “painful rectal itch”. So these days I keep thinking of whether it’s possible to develop & deliver such an arrow along with whether that crosses a line, pacifistically speaking.
The HA affects funding the procedures, not the infrastructure. There are portable procedure rooms that can be placed in a parking lot; providers can then do any procedure they want.
Maybe you could run as Tribune of the Plebs? You have a way better track record as a reformer than, like, any Democrat and I promise we won’t let the Optimes murder you this time.
Youngkin laid pretty heavily on the “Critical Race Theory” crap. And he’s making moves to ban abortion in Virginia.
So clearly, right wing wackjob gets out the votes on the Republican side. Fear of a right wing wackjob raising the hackles of an opposition, not so much-- even though it should.
Executive branch needs to do executive things; right now that should be low hanging fruit like strengthening data privacy, medical privacy, privacy in general … civil rights protections for travel, LGBTQ … tying funding to access to care … prosecuting people who threaten election workers, social workers, doctors, patients, etc …
They should also start a national conversation on getting a privacy amendment into the Constitution. (Subtext: we should start working on making it more normal to amend the Constitution.)
Whatever else we think of him, Trump at least showed that not having any actual power in Congress didn’t really stop him from energizing his base and setting the party message for years to come. (If anything not having a real job to do made him more communicative.)
Anyway, I hope Biden doesn’t run again, and my preferred nominees in no particular order are Corey Booker, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Mitch Landrieu, and Stacy Abrams.
How do you propose passing the those amendments if not through the legislative branch? It’s either Congress and the Senate, or a never-gonna-happen 3/4 of states. Or am I mistaken?
I have Native American friends who really don’t like the idea of being used in this way. Tribes are having enough trouble with sovereignty issues and don’t need another problem. If a tribe offers it that is awesome, but it’s not cool to ask them to put themselves at risk.
LITERALLY ONE MOTHERFUCKING EXECUTIVE FUCKING ORDER.
Abortion is legal. Federal lands are under federal jurisdiction. Just fucking say that abortions can be performed there. It’s literally that simple- Not the implementation, obviously, but the standing up and reassuring everyone that if the Democratic party isn’t willing to grow a spine, they will at least get out of the goddamned way. Literally just sign an order saying “Abortions may be performed on federal lands, subject to normal best practices for comparative medical procedures.”
At this point I think I may hate the Democrats even more than the Republicans. Yeah, I get how important it is to vote for them- And I DO, and then I feel like my vote has had exactly the same effect as if I’d just written in Mickey Mouse. Or just stayed home.
I mean, I’m grateful that I live in an RCV state where I can vote my conscience AND vote for the Democrat, but if that weren’t the case, I honestly don’t know how much more of this I could watch without flat out giving up entirely.
Let’s not forget who is twisting the knife into you and who is standing by ineffectually. They are both bad and they may seem equally so, but the knife would not be cutting you in the first place without the fascist holding it.
