The Supreme Court has been around as long as the Constitution itself, more than two centuries now. Since the Warren court of the 1950s, Republicans have been open about their intention to pack it with judges who will repeal birth control, civil rights, labor rights, minimum wages, environmental regulation and most of the 20th century. Democrats, if they were ever a party of the people, as opposed to another party of the elite, have had sixty-some years to craft their own strategy to thwart Republicans. Democratic elected officials have never done this because of course they have more in common with their elite Republican counterparts than they do with the unwashed masses who vote Democratic, and who can always be rallied with the cynical cry that only Democrats can save them from an evil Republican Supreme Court.
Back in 2005 the second President Bush nominated John Roberts as chief justice. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. The most celebrated, widely quoted, and closely watched Democrat on the judiciary committee was the acclaimed constitutional scholar and freshman from Illinois, Barack Obama. These were the guys on point for Democrats that season.
John Roberts had a long history of hostility to birth control, to voting rights, to organized labor, black and brown people, anti-discrimination laws and to anything else which might mitigate or restrain the rule of the rich in even the smallest degree. As a DC circuit court judge he “legalized” after the fact Bush’s illegitimate detention and torture at offshore black sites. As a private attorney he represented mining companies defending the horrifically destructive practice of mountaintop removal, and he was part of the Bush V. Gore legal team which succeeded in letting the Supreme Court overrule the ongoing tally of votes in Florida and declare Bush the winner. Roberts was also a board member of the rabidly right wing Federalist Society, which seeks to overturn virtually all civil rights and environmental law, and all regulation of so-called “free markets” whatsoever.
Republican leaning corporate media rejoiced, saying they were finally gonna get what they wanted. Environmental, voting rights and civil rights organizations sounded the alarm, but to little avail. Elected Democrats, their supposed champions, along with Democrat-leaning corporate media whined that there was insufficient evidence of Roberts’ rightward leanings to invest much effort in stopping his ascent to the court. Bush was a hugely unpopular president, and congressional Democrat candidates across the country were campaigning not on local issues, but against the president, a winning strategy for the following year as it turned out.
Ranking Democrat John Kerry and Barack Obama were urged to filibuster the Roberts nomination. They pretended to entertain the idea a while, but did not. Kerry and Obama failed to oppose the Roberts nomination in committee, where they could have imposed substantial roadblocks and opened an ongoing debate about the sinister role of the corporate funded Federalist Society. They voted against the nomination on the Senate floor, where it made no difference, and John Roberts got on the Supreme Court with no serious opposition.
The next summer, in 2006 when Bush nominated Sam Alito to the Supreme Court the exercise was repeated. Samuel Alito had an even more balls-out reputation as an opponent of civil and human rights. Republicans exulted while lawyerly Democrats and their media mouthpieces claimed there were no smoking guns to tell whether Alito was actually the kind of judge Republicans claimed he was. Kerry and Obama, both lawyers of course were urged again to vigorously oppose the nomination in committee, and above all to make Alito’s membership in the Federalist Society a major point in opposing him and the entire wave of Republican judges it vets and spawns for local benches and the federal judiciary.
reality.
bruce provided some. it probably rained on a few parades.
too bad.
now for gaza:
F.Y.I Israel destroyed a school today.
- Israeli forces shot 15-year-old Mahmoud Daoud in the head with live fire on May 14 in Gaza. The bullet struck his forehead & exited through the top of his head. He survived in critical condition until his health declined & he died in Al-Shifa hospital on July 4. #GazaReturnMarch
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, July 11, 2018. At least the Iraqi people know not to be fooled by do-nothing politicians.
Right now, in Baghdad, the temperature is 114 degrees Fahrenheit while Basra has a temperature of 122. Imagine living in that heat -- or trying to.
Imagine it when the country is so hard up for water that the government is cracking down on farmers, refusing to allow them to plant needed crops.
But, as Demi Lovato notes, it gets worse.
Ali Mamouri (AL-MONITOR) reports:
Anyone needing yet another reason why Hayder al-Abadi doesn't deserve a second term as prime minister should really pay attention to the above.
Not only did Hayder fail to pay the bill, he also lied to the Iraqi people and claimed that this was an "electricity shortage plaguing Iran." No, the shortage was in the ability or willingness of Hayder to pay the electric bill.
He can't even manage to pay the basic bills and he thinks he deserves a second term.
Meanwhile, the usual losers are trying to pimp the following as good news.
Right now, in Baghdad, the temperature is 114 degrees Fahrenheit while Basra has a temperature of 122. Imagine living in that heat -- or trying to.
Imagine it when the country is so hard up for water that the government is cracking down on farmers, refusing to allow them to plant needed crops.
But, as Demi Lovato notes, it gets worse.
Ali Mamouri (AL-MONITOR) reports:
As temperatures rise in the blazing hot summer, wide areas in Iraq’s
center and south grapple with an electricity crisis that sparked a wave of protests in Basra, Dhi Qar and Diyala, among others.
During his visit to the Diyala province on July 9, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that these power cuts resulted from the electricity shortage plaguing Iran, which led it to cut off its power supply to Iraq.
“The electricity crisis emerged in Iraq after Iran’s power supply
lines had been cut off due to the latter’s need for electricity. This
led Iraq to lose about 1,400 megawatts [MW], affecting the number of
power supply hours in Diyala and other provinces,” he added.
Abadi promised that the crisis would end soon amid ongoing talks with
the Iranian authority aimed at resuming Iran’s power supply.
However, Mohamed Fathi, the spokesman for the Iraqi Electricity Ministry, had announced July 8 that Iran cut off its electricity supply to Iraq due to funds owed by Baghdad.
The two reasons have seemingly had an impact on Iran's power supply
to Iraq, as Iraq owes Iran a lot, and the latter is also suffering from
electricity shortages in the capital and some southern cities due to
increased electricity use in the summer.
This is not the first time that Iran cut off the electricity supply to Iraq. In early 2017,
Iran cut off its power supply to Iraq because of the accrual of more
than $2 billion in debt to Iran, which led Iraq to settle its debt in installments. Also, the accrual of debt in July 2016 led Iran to cut off its power supply to Iraq for two months. The power supply was only resumed after Iraq paid part of its debt.
Anyone needing yet another reason why Hayder al-Abadi doesn't deserve a second term as prime minister should really pay attention to the above.
Not only did Hayder fail to pay the bill, he also lied to the Iraqi people and claimed that this was an "electricity shortage plaguing Iran." No, the shortage was in the ability or willingness of Hayder to pay the electric bill.
He can't even manage to pay the basic bills and he thinks he deserves a second term.
Meanwhile, the usual losers are trying to pimp the following as good news.
BREAKING: At #NATOSummit, #Canada will offer to command #NATO's new training force in #Iraq, PM @JustinTrudeau announces at #NATOEngages. Canada will also commit 250 troops and a number of helicopters.
PM Trudeau announces that Canada will lead NATO training mission in Iraq. Mission will include up to 250 armed services personnel and up to four Griffon helicopters.
No, it's not good news.
Continuing an illegal war and an illegal occupation is never a good thing.
Refusing to allow the people in a country to self-determine is never a good thing.
What we're seeing right now is what the American people rejected in 2008.
This is what John McCain wanted, a never-ending occupation.
I know the community understands what that means but let's go slowly for the drive-bys so that maybe they'll get it as well.
If the US leaves Iraq, this has always been the fear, the government they've propped up won't last.
But if they can stay long enough -- US forces -- then maybe the government can have roots by merely exhausting the people.
That's not going to happen. History shows us that it won't. The US can keep troops in Iraq for 200 years. That's not going to exhaust the Iraqi people. In fact, it may anger them so much -- look at what happened in Iran -- that not only do the puppets get ousted but something far more restrictive springs up in its place as a yo-yo response to what came before.
That's reality.
The Iraq War is wrong. The continued occupation of Iraq is wrong. That idiots in the US see Canada 'stepping up' as a good thing goes to the fact that they're as depraved as Margaret Trudeau.
In America, Justy's fans -- male and female -- straight and gay -- seem to be like Maggie when she was drunk and drugged, in search of the eternal good dickin' and they just seem to know little Justy's going to give it to them.
Well he's certainly screwed over the unions and the environment so he might take a moment to thrust his lance inside them.
Justin jumping on the bandwagon of war isn't a good thing. Despite what the laughable 'resistance' claims.
But when you're every day is about turning yourself into a pretzel to declare this or that Trump action bad, you can't really think too well, can you?
Trump's attacks on NATO? No surprise that the useless and illegal acting Tommy Vietor would be all upset. You sort of picture him on all fours, trotting after Justy, looking to lick up any droppings. Isn't that what he did with the American people's personal information -- soaked it all up. The people who make Tommy Veitor a pundit are the people who doom the United States. In earlier times, this sort of people praised Henry Kissinger.
Tommy wants e-mails now. Well, why doesn't he fork over all the ones involving talk of kidnapping Glenn Greenwald (over Greenwald's reporting on the NSA spying)? Oh, does Tommy think we're all impressed by his b.s. We're not. We can't even tolerate his b.o.
Tommy stinks. And he'll be gone shortly, forgotten as trash like him so often is. He's got a brief moment and that's only because Amy Goodman proved to be a whore and so did so many other well rewarded whores. So centrists like Tommy are pushed to the front because they're 'new' faces. And because most people don't do the work required -- especially when someone's saying -- lying -- to tell them what they want to hear. But the work does get done -- by others, the work gets done -- the work of exposing trash and Tommy's days as a pundit will be gone.
'The resistance' is a joke because it made itself a joke. It's a bunch of stupid and delusional people who can't face reality and so they spin conspiracy theories -- love the latest one, in 1987 Russia, knowing it would break up in the 90s, recruited Donald Trump -- that are looney and crazy instead of admitting that they ran a lousy candidate -- one that they themselves had destroyed in 2008 [see "They killed Hillary in 2008 (Ava and C.I.)"]. They destroyed her. She was never going to be able to turn out enough voters to win. And she didn't. She couldn't inspire because you can't have Tommy and his buddy Jon calling her a racist to the press, saying she was calling for Barack to be assassinated, and then, eight years later, expect her to be an inspiring figure.
It's amazing, by the way, that the same people who claim to be left and claim to embrace diversity are always the first ones to try to latch onto the nipple of Tommy -- a WASP is part of the national security state. But, hey, when has the faux left not elevated WASPs to the front of the podium? Including the professor who tried to recruit me for the CIA. I look at that and think how wonderful that was. Here was this supposed hero, this supposed character of integrity (who can out himself if he wants because otherwise I'll probably be outing him myself), and he calls me in to discuss a paper -- I'm a "true iconoclast," he insists -- and could I meet his friend and, oops, it's CIA.
Would any of us have listened to him back then -- or today -- if we'd known he was recruiting for the CIA? That he was using his college post to trask and recruit for the CIA?
I've gone back and forth repeatedly over the years, in my mind, trying to find a justification for what he did but the truth is that there is no justification. He presented as someone of academic honor and of independence. But his whole career has been on the CIA payroll.
'The resistance' doesn't care about things like that. They just need someone to feed their forever outrage. Each day they must be outraged. And if Donald's policies won't do it (they're not that left, the resistance, so they rarely give a damn about the policies and instead need conspiracy theories), they invent some nutty 'theory' (they don't even have the educational grounding to grasp that these are hypothesis -- bad ones -- and not theories).
They waste all this energy on MSNBC and in a few years they'll find something else to lap at.
They could be protesting something that truly matters. They could be working on real issues. But it's so much easier just to be a useless tool waiting for corporate media and corporate America to tell you what to think.
That paragraph, the one right above, sums up the 20th century and, sadly, has already begun to sum up the 21st century.
Imagine, for example, if the useless tools of the 20th century had instead worked on the Palestinian issue instead of justifying the Democratic Party's destruction of labor and all other movements? Imagine what might have already been accomplished. Instead, the tools spent the last decades of the 20th century fawning over Big Money and justifying the destruction of the Democratic Party (via 're-inventing government'). They were so busy Bull Moosing, and Third Waying and DLCing -- all of that b.s. that didn't make We The People any better but, in fact, made everyone a lot worse.
And now this same ignorant mob is eager to spend all their time supporting a party that doesn't support them. They're sad and they're sick. They're so eager to follow, they won't even notice the political equivalent of the gas being turned on.
They can't stand up for anything because they don't believe in anything other than "Save me, White man, save me! Tell me what to think!"
Pathetic.
In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears
There's the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed thirty years
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
They worship the useless -- like Hillary -- because they can't honor themselves. They search outside because they fear grabbing the power in their own lives. They need a White daddy to tell them what to do because that's what they're comfortable with. White daddy may have beaten them, may have assaulted them, may have raped them. It doesn't matter, they run to him because they don't trust themselves.
They can't think for themselves. They can't even run their own lives.
They're like a friend who I've mocked -- to her face -- many times because her entire second marriage (until it went really bad) was nothing but running to pay phones to ask her then-husband what their political position was on whatever issue was breaking at the moment.
Really? The news reports X and you have to run to daddy to find out what you think about it?
How pathetic.
Chris Hedges thinks the whole system's about to collapse.
He's just done a program on the coming economic collapse.
I think Chris is insightful and synthesizes and analyzes incredibly well.
But I don't think the system goes under. It didn't in the Great Depression.
What happened was that a significant number of the people woke up to what the government could be doing for the people -- should be doing -- and a few tiny measures were taken to satisfy this cry. Tiny measures. And every decade after was about stripping those tiny measures away.
'The resistance' is a joke. Maxine Waters has become a joke. The American people should be outraged by pretty much every elected member of Congress. They should be making demands of them. But instead, 'the resistance' needs their racist notions of duality to play cowboys & Indians instead of dedicating themselves to anything that actually matters -- like Medicare For All or ending the wars or economic justice.
Remember when US Ambassador Ryan Crocker declared that there was this "elitist authoritarianism that basically ignores the people. Right now, what I'm concerned about is the persistence of the political culture in which the governors simply do not really care about the governed."?
Remember that?
Sadly, he was talking about Iraq and not the US. It applied to both but he could only see it in Iraq.
That was 2010. Today?
Unlike the American people, the Iraqi people were smart enough to realize that Hayder al-Abadi was not their friend. Many of them refused to vote on May 12th. Those who did bother to vote? They made sure Do Nothing Hayder came in third.
Hayder al-Abadi did nothing for them. He did not improve their lives. He did not stop corruption. He did not create jobs. He did not stop violence.
You don't see them, now that the election is over, crying, "I'm Still With Her!" or any other such foolishness.
Only in America . . .
Exposure to burn pits can produce serious & potentially life-threatening health effects on our troops. It’s time to take action. Congress must make passing the Burn Pits Accountability Act a priority to ensure proper care and services for veterans.
Burn pits are a real issue. But the American people have allowed Congress to escape their responsibility and address this very real issue. The first hearings I attended on burn pits? Put on by the Democratic National Committee. Yes, it was members of Congress. But the DNC was staging these events. (Officially, it was the Senate Democratic Policy Committee -- but the DNC picked up the bill.) Bully Boy Bush was in the White House. And Dems, if they only had control of a house of Congress, would be addressing this serious issue that was harming so many who had served in Iraq . . .
But they got control of the White House and both houses of Congress and they did nothing. A registry. Wow. Thanks. That's so incredible. I sat through how many hearings about people dying because of burn pits and after years and years of 'work' on the issue Congress gave us a registry.
Not any benefits for those suffering. Not any legal recourse for those suffering.
But, hey, let's get a registry.
Some have compared it to Agent Orange.
They're right. Dems didn't want to do anything on that either.
In fact, Senator Jim Webb -- applauded by the same losers who make up 'the resistance' today -- openly argued -- this is why he couldn't run for re-election though Big Media didn't want to tell you that -- against aid for the victims of Agent Orange. At least US veterans will fight for their own interests. It's a pity more Americans won't do the same.
The following community sites updated:
How they fake on Kavanaugh
2 hours ago
Hillary running in 2020?
2 hours ago
Hannah Gadsy and other emarrassments
2 hours ago
Time for the US to get out of Syria
2 hours ago
