sunnykerr

We'll see how she does now.

canflam

Well, this was the first time that Alaska use ranked voting, which I think helped. Palin isn't a fan of ranked voting from what I understand. Senator Tom Cotton thinks ranked voting is a "scam". I'll just say that if Republicans think that Alaskan House race was rigged, then I don't expect them have much success in our November elections here. There are more important races happening than that 1, such as in the Senate. If I were to rig a race it would be to make sure that Memet, Hershel Walker, or Blake Masters do not win their elections for the Senate this year. It's kind of funny that Republicans could not get better candidates than them to me.

sunnykerr

I think it might have also helped that women have realized what happens when they don't vote.

I realize that Republican-controlled areas are still working double overtime to stop minority voters from exercising their right to vote, but the overturning of Roe v Wade showed everyone the danger of letting the GOP getting away with it.

Apathy is the death of civil and human rights. You can never take those for granted.

So, hopefully, what happened in Alaska (and Kansas before it) is just the first of many state-level manifestations of what the electorate can do when it is pissed off.

canflam

Liz Truss has been named P.M. of the U.K. I could be wrong, but I do not think that many people got to vote on that. Some of you likely understand how politics work in the United Kingdom more than I do. I do know that she is a conservative. It's a different system than the U.S. has, but similar to here I think there has to be a better way to pick the most "powerful" position I think in politics for the U.K. than how this has happened. Due to Brexit I do not know a comparison for the U.K. & what's happening there. It's a mess from what I gather.

sunnykerr

Boris's resignation didn't mean a new election. Under the parliamentary system, the prime minister is the leader of the party that received the most vote in the last election.

So, the PM resigning just means the party has to re-elect a leader from among its membership. The people who voted were, therefore, members of the party. The citizenry will have their say at the next election.

I'm also not English or British. But I do know the Conservatives have had a stranglehold on power in the UK since the financial crisis of the end of the first decade of the 21st century and the UK's expenses scandal that happened towards the end of it.

Since then, Theresa May notwithstandingm it's been a succession of toffee-nosed, privately educated Conservative leaders who, so far as I can tell, have done f-all to help out their electorate but keep getting re-elected because they don't face much of an opposition.

The opinion of a foreigner.

canflam

Thanks for posting about that. Queen Elizabeth II has dies at age 96. Certainly wish her family well. I'm not as fascinated with ''royalty'' as others, so I did not know how that monarchy actually works. I know of some of the people that have been in it & still are such as Prince Charles. Guess he is ''King Charles'' currently. From what I have come across Elizabeth married II married Phillip Mountbatten & he died in April of last year. He was the ''Duke of Edinburgh''.

sunnykerr

I'm pretty impressed that you managed to live in this world and be that confused about the monarchy.

I don't care one way or the other about them, but I wish I could unload the knowledge of who's who among them.

Charles is King Charles III now, yes. And a very old lady died still holding on to the title she swore to devote her whole life to. So, all in all, it is the end of an era, but it's not a tragedy.

canflam

Well, monarchies I'm just passed. England is our ally, but some here are quite fascinated with its monarchy, though in this country's history we fought them to not be a part of it & won. Your country is a ''constitutional monarchy'', so I'm not surprised that you know more about it.

sunnykerr

I'm French Canadian. You think winning your independence 200 years ago means you're "passed" it? Try being a descendant of the so-called conquered. My dad still talks about "when the English invaded us" like his own father wasn't English-speaking (though, if I point that out, I get "we're Scottish" as if that made a difference back then.)

Anyway, even if being French Canadian did not almost automatically make me anti-monarchist, it's not like Canadians take classes where we're made to memorize their names and titles.

It's because they're celebrities. Kinda like the Kardashians, but with German ancestry. It's that celebrity culture thing where I have knowledge of things I have no desire to know, like that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez got married or that Justin Bieber has stopped the tour he's on right now.

So, again, I envy you your confusion in these matters. It must be lovely and freeing.

canflam

Yeah, though I am a fan of Ben Affleck, I don't need to know who he is romantically with, but I do & wish them well. I cam across this story on Yahoo:

Chief Justice John Roberts defends legitimacy of court

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday defended the authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, saying its role should not be called into question just because people disagree with its decisions.

When asked to reflect on the last year at the court in his first public appearance since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Roberts said he was concerned that lately some critics of the court’s controversial decisions have questioned the legitimacy of the court, which he said was a mistake. He did not mention any specific cases or critics by name.

“If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle. You don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate decision is,” Roberts said while being interviewed by two judges from the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at its conference in Colorado Springs.

Roberts described the last year as an unusual and difficult one, pointing to the public not be allowed inside the court, closed in 2020 because of the pandemic, as one hardship. He also said it was “gut wrenching” to drive into the Supreme Court that was surrounded by barricades every day.

The barriers were installed in May when protests erupted outside the court and outside the homes of some Supreme Court justices after there was an unprecedented leak of a draft opinion indicating the justices were planning to overturn Roe v. Wade, which provided women constitutional protections for abortion for nearly 50 years. The barriers are gone and the public will be allowed back inside when the court's new session begins in October but an investigation into the leak ordered by Roberts continues.

Speaking at the same conference Thursday, Justice Neil Gorsuch said it is “terribly important” to identify the leaker and said he is expecting a report on the progress of the investigation, “I hope soon.”

Gorsuch condemned the leak, as have other justices who have addressed it publicly.

“Improper efforts to influence judicial decision-making, from whatever side, from whomever, are a threat to the judicial decision-making process," Gorsuch said. Reporters from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg attended the talk.

The leaked draft was largely incorporated into Justice Samuel Alito's final opinion in June that overturned Roe v. Wade in a case upholding Mississippi's law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The ruling paved the way for severe abortion restrictions or bans in nearly half of U.S. states.

In June's ruling, Roberts, appointed to the court in 2005 by former President George W. Bush, voted to uphold Mississippi's law but he did not join the conservative justices in also overturning Roe v. Wade, as well as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to end a pregnancy. He wrote that there was no need to overturn the broad precedents to uphold the state law, saying he would take “a more measured course.”

Roberts has spoken out repeatedly about the importance of the judiciary’s independence and to rebut perceptions of the court as a political institution not much different than Congress or the presidency.

Opinion polls since the leak and the release of the final abortion decision, though, have shown a sharp drop in approval of the court and confidence in the institution.

When asked what the public might not know about how the court work, Roberts emphasized the collegiality among the justices and the court's tradition of shaking hands before starting conferences or taking the bench. After the justices might disagree about a decision, everyone eats together in the court's dining room where they talk about everything but work, he said. He said it's not borne out of “fake affection” but a respect that comes from the push and pull of explaining ideas and listening to the responses to them.

“We have a common calling and we act like it,” he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chief-jus...054513253.html


Geez. Where to begin? Well, leaks happen this day & age. Good luck to anyone trying to find who leaked that opinion of Samuel Alito. Also, when people decide to take others rights away, what do they think will be a realistic response? Don't even get me stared on the U.S. constitution, which though I have not read all of, I am almost certain that there was not a single mention of the words ''woman'' or ''women'' in it.

sunnykerr

Honestly, the right to an abortion should have been enshrined in federal law at any time during the last five decades since Roe v. Wade.

I have no sympathy for the SCOTUS GOP Justices. I have all the sympathy in the world for Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Brown Jackson who didn't ask to be any part of this attack on the democratic system. But the others? You reap what you sow. And, honestly, barricades are the bare minimum of what they should face.

As for the leak? Imagine being a judge and taking issue with someone in your institution having a conscience. Deplorable, the lot of them.

canflam

There's a bunch going on. Ken Starr has died at age 76. Here's a link to more on him: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/u...tarr-dead.html

Here's some news on Senator Lindsey Graham who remember is not married nor has children: Lindsey Graham Introduces Nationwide Abortion Ban Weeks After Saying It’s Up to States


Lindsey Graham introduced a federal abortion ban on Tuesday, just weeks after declaring the issue should be left to the states.

“I think we should have a law at the federal level that would say that after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand,” the South Carolina senator said at a news conference to discuss the bill, which would indeed ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks gestation, a far cry from the “late-term abortion” ban Graham is publicly marketing.

Graham wants to overrule the right of states to set their own abortion laws despite having said on several occasions that abortion should be dictated by states, not the federal government. “I think states should decide the issue of marriage and states should decide the issue of abortion,” the South Carolina senator told CNN last month.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in August: States should regulate abortion.

Sen. Lindsey Graham in September: The federal government should regulate abortion. pic.twitter.com/VvMDZd9fsp
— The Recount (@therecount) September 13, 2022

Graham also tweeted in May that if “the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which I believe was one of the largest power grabs in the history of the Court, it means that every state will decide if abortion is legal and on what terms.”


— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2022

When asked on Tuesday about Republicans who believe the issue should be left to the states, Graham reportedly said, “That’s great. That’s their position. That’s a sound position. That’s not my position.”

Graham and Republicans lauded the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a month later, arguing that abortion rights should be left to individual states. It took less than three months for Graham to take the lead in proposing a federal ban.

Public backlash to the overturn of Roe and the subsequent flood of state-level measures restricting abortion access have worried Republican leadership. In August, voters in Kansas rejected a ballot initiative that would have amended the state constitution to allow the implementation of new restrictions on abortion. Additionally, voter registration among women has surged in the aftermath of the Roe decision.

“Republicans have been hiding from their record on this issue since the day Kansans rejected the GOP’s extremist abortion ban by overwhelming numbers,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju told Rolling Stone in a statement. “They know how unpopular their stance is. All today’s bill does is confirm that no matter how much they try to hide from their own agenda, what they want is clear: to end abortion in every state, everywhere.”

The Senate, which returned from its summer recess this week, plans to vote on a bill that would guarantee the right to marriage regardless of the sex and gender of the couple. The bill is an effort to codify rights currently only guaranteed by Supreme Court decisions, following comments from Justice Clarence Thomas indicating that the court should reconsider previous rulings that used the “right to privacy” to establish the right to contraception, same-sex marriage, and protections for same-sex relationships.

Graham and a coalition of anti-abortion organizations announce the introduction of the bill on Tuesday. It was reported not long after that a group of House Republicans were introducing a similar measure to ban abortion after 15 weeks.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...an-1234591744/

sunnykerr

The GOP doesn't stand for anything except control.

It's up to the states when it comes to making sure black people can't vote, but it's certainly not up to the states when there are some like Kansas that will preserve gender equality and human rights.

This is fascism. Ideology that shifts to suit their purposes? That's fascism.

canflam

It is quite ridiculous. Here's news on migrants being bused to Chicago: Mayors hope to coordinate response to migrants from Texas after buses from Chicago arrive in suburbs. Latest stop: Elk Grove Village.

Suburban mayors Monday called for better communication and coordination with Chicago and state governments after being surprised by busloads of migrants being sent to their towns — and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pledged to work with the mayors.

Two CTA buses carrying about 90 migrants arrived Saturday at a La Quinta Inn in Elk Grove Village,the latest group of asylum-seekers sent to the area by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a way to criticize the nation’s immigration policies.

After being notified Friday afternoon that the buses were coming, Elk Grove Mayor Craig Johnson said he had many questions about whether they’d had health and safety checks, questions that federal immigration officials eventually answered satisfactorily.

Johnson said he had a cordial conversation with Lightfoot on Sunday, who, he said, apologized but said the state was overseeing the process. Johnson called for the state and city to work with suburban mayors to arrange an orderly transition for new arrivals.

“They’re upset with Texas, then you’re turning around and doing the exact same thing to me, sending these people without notifying us,” Johnson said. “Let’s work together on this.”

He said dozens of cars were waiting at the hotel, including some from out of state, apparently with friends or relatives who’d known the immigrants were coming.

Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso went further, saying it was “hypocritical” of Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to criticize Abbott for shipping Venezuelan immigrants to Chicago, only to have them sent to Burr Ridge and Elk Grove Village with little or no notice.

Grasso said Lightfoot called him Sunday to say he should have been given notice of the arrivals to a hotel in Burr Ridge on Wednesday. But Grasso said Chicago still bore responsibility as the sanctuary city where the people arrived.

Initially, the governor’s office issued a statement in response to Grasso, saying that “xenophobia has no home here.”

At a news conference Monday, Pritzker explained that the state had very little notice from Texas, and had to almost immediately find shelter, food and medical care for the arrivals. The hotels were chosen, he said, simply because they had vacancies and were able to arrange accommodations quickly.

“We give notice as fast as we can,” he said.

“The governor of Texas needs to stop sowing chaos and needs to work with states” he said. Pritzker said the immigrants also must be transported willingly, “because otherwise it’s kidnapping.”

Abbott sent the immigrants, with more expected to come, to sanctuary cities, including Washington, D.C., and New York City, to protest federal policies allowing large numbers of immigrants coming into Texas.

Lightfoot’s office issued a statement that the city continues to work closely with the county, state, and federal partners to welcome the migrants that Texas is “inhumanely transporting.”

“As Mayor Lightfoot has said, we will work with mayors across the metro area to maintain an open line of communication to provide adequate care and treat new arrivals with the dignity they deserve.”

The Illinois Department of Human Services issued a statement that some 300 recent migrants were being placed in urban and suburban hotels, in some cases where previous refugees, such as those from Afghanistan, had been placed.

“We will continue taking action to ensure everyone in Illinois has access to shelter, food, health care and other basic, essential supports,” according to the statement. “We anticipate that the state of Texas will continue to bus migrants to Illinois, and we remain committed to helping welcome new arrivals in a responsible, orderly and compassionate way.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...b7e-story.html

With any fortune Greg Abbott will lose his race for Governor of Texas to Beto O'Rourke in November I think. I mean complaining that these immigrants did not get sent to or stay in Chicago? It clearly I think shows that Abbott & some other Republican politicians are inhumane or have a tendency to be inhumane.

sunnykerr

South American migrants are routinely "dumped" on other states by Southern GOP governors. And that's not new. It was like this when I was a a little kid. How else do you explain Chicago having the third largest Hispanic community in the United States?

And, of course, we don't need to mention Nueva York.

You have two different styles of governance in your country (if I'm honest, something very similar is happening here as well though, thank goodness, not quite to the same extent. Yet.) You have politicians who try to divide and conquer, dehumanizing "problem" demographics in the process, and you have politicians who see people as humans first, entitled to the rights that come with that.

Which is why people like Lindsay Graham are making moves to try and remove the power of those politicians that would support human rights and equality.

Fascism 101. Find an Other, get our people to believe their safety/wealth/future is threatened by that Other and it's hardly any effort to curtail the rights of that Other after that. And they keep getting re-elected (at least, as long as elections keep on happening) because scared people are easier to control. So they have more power, and the wealth that comes with that.

As if white, male, Christians were under threat in the United States.