What is it

Why does it matter

Why isn't it happening

What it means other than the Democrats have failed nationally and on a state level

If you can


on sabbatical.

does it really matter?

wonder what bin's doing?
http://i.imgur.com/phECCMp.jpg

>
>What is it
>

Strengthens federal oversight of elections. Will require federal pre clearance of certain state/local election laws.

>
>Why does it matter
>

After the supreme court decided Shelby county vs Holder, a bunch of states went to work putting in hurdles to make voting more difficult for some populations. This bill would effectively reverse the Shelby county decision making it more difficult for states/counties to implement discriminatory voting rules.

>
>Why isn't it happening
>

Even though it has wide public support, it needs 60 senate votes to pass. Republicans won't allow that because more open voting is bad for their health.
The senate rules could be changed to get it done with just 50 votes, but some Dems are not on board (Manchin and sinema, and I suspect a handful of others who are keeping quiet)


>
>What it means other than the Democrats have failed nationally
>and on a state level
>

After the 2020 election, some places have gotten a lot more aggressive with their election rule changes. The fear is if it goes unchecked for long, there'll be no coming back. With the tools to effectively choose the voters, Republicans can simply entrench themselves in power indefinitely.

>
>What is it
>

Senate rule that allows one senator to stop a bill from coming up for vote. With 60 votes, the filibuster can be stopped and a vote on a bill can proceed.

>
>Why does it matter
>

A supermajority (60 votes) is needed to pass anything in the senate. As a result it is very difficult to pass anything, especially with the degree of polarization nowadays

>
>Why isn't it happening
>

Democrats want to eliminate the filibuster (or at least for just the voting rights vote). They need 50 votes to change this rule. But Manchin and Sinema are publicly against this move.

A fear is that when the other party is in power, it will open up the door for them to change the rules to fit their needs too (see the filibuster for judicial appointments).

I say get rid of the filibuster all together. A majority vote wins for everything. That's how it should be. If the people vote a party into power, then they should have the ability to pass legislation without arbitrary roadblocks. If that results in Republicans passing their agenda when in power, so be it.

If the people don't like it, they'll vote in democrats who will reverse it.


>
>What it means other than the Democrats have failed nationally
>and on a state level
>

It means that two years of Democrats having complete control of government will have been wasted with very little to show for it

>>
ntments).
>
>I say get rid of the filibuster all together. A majority vote
>wins for everything. That's how it should be. If the people
>vote a party into power, then they should have the ability to
>pass legislation without arbitrary roadblocks. If that results
>in Republicans passing their agenda when in power, so be it.
>
>If the people don't like it, they'll vote in democrats who
>will reverse it.
>
>
>>


How can the people vote in democrats to reverse it, if the simple majority makes it harder to vote ?

Ideally, there would be the courts there to stop violations of voting rights and prevent it from happening. But, ironically, voting can lead to the appointment of judges who are hostile to voting.

There has always been an opening for people to overrun the democratic system. All it takes is the will to do it.

As Joseph Goebbels said: "This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy—that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed."

The Republicans ended the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments 2017 and they LOVED changing the filibuster rules then.

The Republicans - do what it takes to pass their unpopular and anti-Democratic agenda.

Dems SHOULD do the same to enact popular and dEMOCRATIC (with a small d )legislation.

Remember the Republicans represent many few actual PEOPLE in the Senate - and that the Senate was set up to be anti-democratic to get small states to joining the union.

TLDR: Republicans are rat fuckers - we should use the same tactics when necessary.

Even if something passes I expect the Supreme Court to gut it quickly.

Trump winning in 2016 is *actually* the end of America - or the America we knew for around 80 years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/14/conservative-knives-come-out-brett-kavanaugh/


Kavanaugh on Thursday joined with the court’s five other conservatives to strike down President Biden’s vaccine-or-testing mandate for large businesses. But in a separate decision, he and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined with the court’s three liberal justices in allowing Biden’s separate vaccine mandate for health-care workers to move forward.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson got the ball rolling Thursday night by muttering that Kavanaugh was a “cringing little liberal.”


--------


“The left broke Kavanaugh,” Trump Jr. said. “That was always their intention and it worked. They turned him into a Roberts.”

Carlson upped the ante Friday night, combining his and Trump Jr.'s attacks and going after Kavanaugh for tearing up during his confirmation hearing. “We didn’t understand at the time that something had broken inside of Brett Kavanaugh," Carlson said of the confirmation moment, "that on some level his tormenters now controlled him.”


--------


A little more than a year later, some leading conservative firebrands are clearly not content to wait for decades of Kavanaugh decisions. They’ve decided to put him on notice that they’ll go after his character at the drop of a hat when he rules the wrong way — even when he rules the right way the very same day.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

Congress (assuming Ds may lose their majority):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Current_justices


^At 83yo, he is currently the oldest and one of the longest serving justices on the bench and, unfortunately, one of the few remaining who are not staunchly conservative.


If the Ds don't move fast they may at best end up in a situation where their nominee is blocked, like what happened with Garland, and at worst end up in situation where Breyer dies on the bench like RBG.

I feel like there's not been enough alarm about this predicament, with everything else going on. The SCOTUS conservative majority is already a concern, but if the Ds allow the margin to GROW after this period that they controlled Congress and the Exec branch..? Smh that would be pure ineptitude. Especially after watching the Rs be so ruthless with the Judiciary branch in recent years.