How Alarmed Should We Be?

What a leader. How proud you must be. See post # 301. I'm done.

 

This is why I claimed a win in post #313.

The actual facts (the transcript of the press conference) contradict your narrative, so you don't have any options other than concede, which you've shown you would never do, facts be damned. As a consequence, now you're "done."

Or you can post another video of Charlie Sheen. That was a great comeback!

 

All is not lost.

It is a dark time in the life of the American experiment. The world’s oldest democracy, once assumed to be unbreakable, often appears to be coming apart at the rivets. From his Florida exile, a defeated leader, whose efforts to overturn the last election are still coming into view, is working to place loyalists in key offices across the country, and his followers are racing to install themselves at the controls of future elections.

Yet in Arizona this week, the unlikeliest of characters just stepped forward with a palm raised to the forces of Donald J. Trump. When right-wing lawmakers there pushed a bill that would have given the Republican-controlled Legislature the power to unilaterally reject the results of an election and force a new one, Rusty Bowers said no.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/arizona-republicans-rusty-bowers-voting-rights.html

 

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This is merely a business-as-usual struggle for partisan advantage dressed up in apocalyptic costume.
How Dems Rediscovered the Joys of Rigging Elections

Jonathan Turley, The Hill

 

I read the piece last week. Jonathan became a reliable shill for Repubs going back to Trump's first impeachment trial and Schlitz Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing. His credibility having been shattered after coming out in favor of Clinton's impeachment while expressing the belief the prez illegally extorting a foreign leader over campaign help did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
The article you site completely ignoring the fact that Dems have two choices. Stand on the moral ground of not gerrymandering which would ensure Repub's ability to gerrymander their way to control of the House or get in the mud with Repubs. Turley scolds them for the latter while they favor prohibiting the practice altogether. Hack on Jon.

 

I was a serving officer during the Clinton impeachment controversy. It was quite corrosive among our junior officers to have a commander in chief who would not have passed his security background check for entry on duty.
You are attacking Turley for his loyalty to constitutional principles.
As for what has come to be called gerrymandering, it is simply the constitutionally prescribed method of creating congressional districts, and gives an advantage -- as it should -- to those who achieve success at the state level.

 

I'm not. I'm pointing out the principle to which he adheres is shameless self-promotion as the Repub's "go-to" guy when they need someone with scholarly legal credentials to weigh in. Legal and constitutional principles notwithstanding.
"As for what has come to be called gerrymandering, it is simply the constitutionally prescribed method of creating congressional districts, and gives an advantage -- as it should -- to those who achieve success at the state level."
Ridiculous. Repubs love to point to the Founders' protection of the minority. What you suggest is the Constitution sanctions an abuse of power by the majority used to keep themselves in power by effectively nullifying the votes of the minority. It is anti-democratic to its core.

 

Gerrymandering has been practiced by both parties for 200 years. Like our adversarial court system, it produces rough fairness by setting self-interested parties against each other -- checks and balances. Only those on the losing end at any particular moment complain about it. The remedy is for a party to win enough at the state level to protect itself.
I find that Turley has been quite consistent in his constitutional approach.

 

I guess you think what you wrote about the anti-democratic process of gerrymandering was a valid defense of its legitimacy. It failed.
Thinking otherwise is to espouse the belief that democracy is about using power to ensure power.......even if the party abusing its power becomes a minority.

Turley beclowned himself with his remarks, because this is not the first time Jonathan Turley has testified about impeachment. In 1998, testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment hearing, Turley said, “No matter how you feel about President Clinton, no matter how you feel about the independent counsel, by his own conduct, he has deprived himself of the perceived legitimacy to govern. You need both political and legal legitimacy to govern this nation, because the President must be able to demand an absolute sacrifice from the public at a moment’s notice.”

It’s impossible to explain the shameless hypocrisy of Turley’s conflicting statements without concluding that his testimony, in both hearings, was offered in bad faith. Can Turley really expect us to believe that he would support impeachment if Trump lied about what he got on Volodymyr Zelensky’s blue dress, but would also support Bill Clinton’s right to extort a foreign power to influence an American election? Turley can’t square his Trump testimony with his Clinton testimony; all he can hope for is that people are too polite to call him a hypocrite to his face.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/turley-impeachment-hypocrisy/

 

I think I'll stick with my view of what is called gerrymandering as simply sound bipartisan political practice.
Quoting The Nation on Turley is like quoting a fly on the swatter.

 

Shame on you for metaphorically shooting the messenger.

 

The Nation is a propagandist, not a messenger.

 

You didn't appreciate them shinning a bright light on Turley's hypocritical intellectual dishonesty........noted.

 

The only dishonesty was that of The Nation, but I suppose that's what you count on them for.

 

Hey, I get it. You didn't like Turley being exposed. No need to belabor the point. I'm sure it won't stop him from making himself available the next time the Repubs need him to contradict himself. It's how he rolls.

 

Meh. I don't have a political investment in Turley. I just don't like to see partisan attacks on down-the-middle thinkers.

 

The Supreme Court Monday put on hold a lower court ruling that would have forced Alabama to redraw its congressional maps that disenfranchised Black voters. It was a 5-4 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the liberals in dissent.

The Court will make a decision on the case challenging the maps in the coming months. It’s a signal that the conservative justices are prepared to further weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The conservative majority did not explain its reasoning in Monday’s order. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did write a concurring opinion, attempting to rebut Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent.

“That decision does a disservice to our own appellate processes, which serve both to constrain and to legitimate the Court’s authority,” wrote Kagan in a scathing dissent. “It does a disservice to the District Court, which meticulously applied this Court’s longstanding voting-rights precedent. And most of all, it does a disservice to Black Alabamians who under that precedent have had their electoral power diminished—in violation of a law this Court once knew to buttress all of American democracy.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme-court-alabama-redistricting-voting-rights-act

I have no faith whatsoever the conservative majority will make a ruling in favor of democracy. After McTreason's treachery not even Roberts can save the legacy he hoped to leave for the Court he leads.

 

You don't know that Jonathan Turley for years has been considered one of the absolute finest legal minds in the U.S.?

 

He's known for being a gun for hire by conservatives.

 

How does that change his qualifications?

 

My point is he's not considered one of the finest legal minds. Sorry you missed it.
He did, however, jump on the caboose of the Trump voter fraud train.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/11/jonathan-turley-is-just-asking-questions

 

Prove it.

 

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1203104444965097477?lang=en

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/turley-impeachment-hypocrisy/

https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/law...-that-dominion-switched-trump-votes-to-biden/

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/473227-the-shifting-impeachment-positions-of-jonathan-turley

Prove he is.

 

Within hours of Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem (R) introducing his bill to “decertify” and “set aside” the 2020 election results in three of Arizona’s largest counties, two things happened. Donald Trump celebrated the move in a public statement, calling it “Big News in Arizona!”

And Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) essentially doomed the bill to failure: “Mr. Finchem’s obviously unconstitutional and profoundly unwise proposal will receive all of the consideration it deserves,” Bowers said in a statement.

The two statements say a lot about Finchem’s bill: It’s likely not going anywhere, and it also thrilled Finchem’s most important supporter in his campaign to become Arizona’s next secretary of state.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...e-candidate-has-a-show-bill-to-decertify-2020

Nutbags continue to crawl out from under rocks to Trump's glee.

 

Former Republican National Committee chair and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot issued an open letter to current RNC chair Ronna McDaniel on Sunday slamming the committee’s censure of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

Racicot’s letter, which was published by the Billings Gazette in Montana, took aim at the RNC’s reason for censuring the two Republicans: The fact that they’re on the House Jan. 6 Committee trying to get to the bottom of the Capitol insurrection that ex-President Donald Trump incited.

Racicot defended Cheney and Kinzinger, saying they were “honorably performing their investigative duties and searching for the truth as members of a duly constituted investigative committee,” not trying to “destroy” Trump, as the RNC resolution claimed.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...ensure-cheney-kinzinger-ronna-mcdaniel-letter

Hard to square the anecdotal stories I'm seeing about how Trump's grip on the party is waning even as the RNC (Repub National Cult) swears their undying devotion to the Orange Messiah.