Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Kavanaugh/Avenatti Effect.

Fire at the bear, kill it. Otherwise...

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

https://www.google.com/amp/freewilli...last-night/amp

Sort of on point- Brooklyn Bazaar, which is a midsize (900) venue, rented the space to someone putting on a show. The promoter/renter booked Louis CK, without advertising the fact (a festival). Louis came out and the crowd reacted, surprised, happy maybe? 900 people; some had to be pissed?

BK small press not happy. The venue distanced itself really quickly.

Is it weird that a venue had to worry about being seen as a place that would book him? Louis and his bad acts hit members of the NYC comedy/improv community so maybe it’s understandable?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Sounds like the venue had its cake and ate it too. They got a happy crowd and covered their ass by apologizing to any folks who might be pissed. Good way to play it. Free press, all good.

There’s a seriously demented vindictiveness at work in society at the moment. It’s not enough to win the debate anymore. It’s not enough for proportional punishment to be meted out. There must be blood. Someone must lose a job, be “locked up,” etc.. My pet theory is it’s politics seeping into our psyches. I blame Newt Gingrich. It wasn’t enough to beat Clinton in political chess. He decided to try to destroy the guy. The “resistance” to Bush II did the same, and McConnell enabled the GOP in doing it to Obama. Trump did it to Hillary, and the resistance to Trump is doing it to him.

Morons learn from seeing this crap on TV that “total war” is the best way to approach those with whom you disagree. That punishment must be extreme, that we must be not only tough but draconian, if not medieval, on crime. And social media has allowed everyone’s ugly Id to run amuck.

It’s a fucking dumpster fire. Moral panics in every direction. Whiners and victims on all sides. (The right has embraced “victim fetishization” with gusto.)

Nobody is “decent” anymore, to borrow that term as used by Morgan Freeman in his speech from the bench at the end of movie version of Bonfire of the Vanities.

CK deserved some time in exile. He got it. I understand some people finding him odious. I can’t look at him the same again. But he’s really fucking funny. So on balance, a press freak out over his appearance is something unwarranted, and something most of us won’t read. Apparently, the crowd who cheered for him agrees.

Re: Turd in the Bowl
 

Apropos of nothing, I think the Low album is Bowie's most underrated.

Democracy is over
 

McConnell, acting through the Supreme Court, has just destroyed democracy.

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

Not necessarily. Look to the state constitution instead: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news...-20180207.html

Re: Democracy is over
 

Or take the power from the legislature https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fre...amp/1847078002

Re: Democracy is over
 

You're insane. You think Texas (and every single Republican state) isn't going to immediately gerrymander the fuck out of themselves with computer programs and algorithms to make sure they never ever turn blue? These state decisions will be few and far between.

This country is being fucked in the ass dry. And Republicans are doing the fucking.

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

If the state constitution has a free and equal voting clause like PA’s, a state Supreme Court would be hard pressed not to do as PA’s did. And PA is insanely corrupt (house and senate controlled by GOP, btw) and its courts very political.

You’ll win some, you’ll lose some. But SCOTUS is not the final word here in every state. This just perhaps delays the purpling of TX.

Re: Democracy is over
 

I think you're delusional.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I mean, not really, but nonetheless, people should have the opportunity to choose whether to see or work with him.

Re: Democracy is over
 

I don't know why you're so upset. We can just have Congress pass legislation or amend the constitution.

Oh, right.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Dems have generally been pushing various fair voting mechanisms for the entire time I've been involved in politics, and we've spent many many millions of dollars working on approaches using computer programs to improve redistricting. Enough. We have to put it all into gerrymandering, as the Rs have.

Re: Democracy is over
 

On the bright side, they have just the tiniest little penises.

Re: Democracy is over
 

It’s funny. I just texted with a GOP operative who told me I was nuts for thinking this wouldn’t allow them to overturn PA’s ruling.

I seem to recall state supreme courts had final word on state constitutional issues? Am I wrong?

Re: Democracy is over
 

Actually, this is the best approach. So it’s not the end of the Democracy. It’s just a splintering of the Republic into permanent red and blue enclaves.

Re: Democracy is over
 

That, of course, favors the Repubes since they have solid control over states with more seats than do Dems. I understand you like that.

Gerrymandering has a lot of adverse consequences - it makes seats noncompetitive, so incumbents more easily win; it shifts the real focus to primaries, so elections get controlled by a smaller more radical group; it concentrates money in fewer competitive districts. There just isn't a silver lining to gerrymandering.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Remember, you have to combine this with things like the gutting of the Civil Rights Act and elimination of a lot of funding restrictions. More of a gang rape.

Re: Democracy is over
 

If it helps, Illinois is gerrymandered the other way:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Ma...ng-Deathmatch/

Re: Democracy is over
 

screw that bipartisan commission - we need more Gerrymandering there now. That commission is unilateral disarmament.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Jesus Christ. We are talking about different things.

I am not interested in PA. First, because the PA decision has already been made.

Second, here's what is going to happen. Every very red state is going to gerrymander the fuck out of every possible election. And they'll do it with the most sophisticated software, ensuring maximum Republican results, which will mean waaaay more lunatic Freedom Caucus types at every possible level of government.

Then, states like Texas (that are trending blue-ward) will do the same. With their newly gerrymandered state senates, they will change the laws. They will appoint more lunatic judges who will uphold those laws. If a state has a constitutional issue with any of it, Republicans will amend it out of existence or their appointed judges will strike the provision.

But if you think any state where Republicans can now gerrymander themselves into a permanent position of power is going to self-regulate itself to fairness after this decision, you are absolutely crazy.

You combine this decision with the destruction of the Voting Rights Act and Republican goals have been met beyond their wildest dreams. The fact that the Electoral College and the existence of the Senate already gives them outsized political power wasn't enough. Your head is going to fucking spin with the levels of political gerrymandering we're about to go through.

This decision is a fucking joke.

(Also, I don't care what your friends think.)

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

Are you serious? Do you even hear yourself?

What the fuck?

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

No. That doesn't help. I would prefer if all states had open and fair fucking elections.

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

We get legal weed in 6 months.

Re: Democracy is over
 

I guess there's that?

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

That was dry gallows humor.

Re: Democracy is over
 

https://media0.giphy.com/media/4PT6v3PQKG6Yg/giphy.gif

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

While I mostly totally agree with your freak out, will it? There will be at least some tension between ensuring the most GOP seats and the safest GOP seats. So maybe there will be some purplish districts that won't elect a lunatic??

Yeah, amending a state constitution isn't a particularly difficult thing to do.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Maybe. But I bet there will be more packing in those situations than spreading. And if there is spreading, it will render Democrat votes completely meaningless, no?

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

That PA has already been decided is immaterial. State supreme courts control decisions regarding interpretation of state constitutions. This means that if TX has a constitution that requires "fair and equal voting" like PA's, and it gerrymanders in some insane way, any citizen of TX can file a suit, which will wind up before the state supreme court on appeal, raising the same issue raised in PA. And this SCOTUS ruling, which is limited to federal intervention in gerrymandering, will not apply.

In PA, the GOP controls House and Senate, and it has for some time. Even with that power, it still could not stop the gerrymandering case from reaching the state supreme court. And no matter what anyone thinks (my friend who works for the GOP included), this new SCOTUS ruling will not imperil the PA supreme court's ruling.

Is this a good situation? No. Am I arguing that you're too worried about what SCOTUS did? No. The sole thing I was offering was a carve-around. Take what I said to be, "Yeah, I hear you. But gerrymandering was dealt with effectively in PA, and that case may provide a template for how it can be dealt with elsewhere."

I totally agree with you that the GOP will go on a lunatic gerrymandering spree as a result of this SCOTUS ruling. But I think this is just going to invite challenges like the one that occurred in PA. And the PA decision is pretty well written. It's going to be hard for even partisan courts in red states to get around that reasoning if they happen to have a constitution similar to PA's, which I'm betting they do.

Is this good for the country? No. Is it certain imminent doom? No. As I read this, SCOTUS punted to the states. PA gave them a roadmap. And you seem to think the states themselves will have to take some "self-regulatory" action. That's just wrong. I don't even know where you come up with that concept. Aggrieved voters simply have to file a lawsuit in response to extreme GOP gerrymandering that is sure to occur in the coming months.

All this ruling has really done is take away federal court as a forum for challenging gerrymandering. That's not good at all. And it will bite the GOP in the ass down the road. But it's not a doomsday event. It just means you have to battle in the state courts.

Re: Democracy is over
 

I didn't know that, and that wasn't my point. I was, badly it appears, joking that this ruling won't imperil democracy, just factionalize the republic into something ungovernable.

I just listened to a recent interview with Jared Diamond where he described how democracies disintegrate. He cited gerrymandering as the most significant of all of the factors. His view is that while everybody is looking at Trump, McConnell is doing to the real damage.

It's a simple hack. Our Republic isn't constructed to work with any party using "total war" tactics. It relies on legislators acting on the system's behalf above their own party interests where the two come into conflict.

The GOP has found a rationale to avoid that duty by saying that the "character of America" is challenged by changes sought by the majority, and it has a duty to stop that, by any means necessary. Yes, that's what they say. You'll never hear it aloud, but I know you've heard it in private. It's like the ramblings of a very bitter Edmund Burke.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Maybe the answer is that Democrats need to do the politics instead of waiting for the Supreme Court to save them.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Absolutely no one, anywhere, is arguing that this Supreme Court decision will affect the PA state court's decision. I am perplexed as to why you keep acting like someone is.

If this is the case as it relates to most state constitutions, I guess that's something. I would be interested to know how many and which states contain such a provision. And as I said before, Republicans are going to revise their constitutions to eliminate this or pack their courts with other lunatic Republicans to get the result they want.

You keep saying this about everything that is happening in this country.

Russian Interference? "Nothing burger."
Voting Rights Act destruction? "Par for the course."
Eliminating federal challenges to purely political gerrymandering? "Not imminent doom."

Etc., ad nauseum. So you'll excuse me if I ignore your take on what will and will not serve as "imminent" and "doom."

Right. And you're betting that state courts in this country are going to come to the same conclusion as PA? You can't possibly be this naïve.

No it won't. Stop talking out of your ass.

Yes it is. If you think North Carolina (for one example) is going to come to the right decision, you're sick in the fucking head.

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

With a fucking vengeance.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Serious question

https://www.google.com/search?q=mich...3rEcm-M:&vet=1 this is a map of the congressional districts around Detroit. Texas looks worse. I would say it would have been nice for the Supremes to stand up (not agreeing or disagreeing with the legal logic, just saying I had hoped for a different result), but honestly do you think it can get much worse?

Re: Democracy is over
 

It's past time. Impeach everyone. Gerrymander everything. Obstruct all. Lie, cheat, steal. Refuse all appointments whenever possible. This is how this country operates now. Fuck the rules. Like Sebby says, all that matters is power. So once you have it, crust the other side and destroy everything to keep it.

TM

Re: Democracy is over
 

this- this is where today's ruling will have a huge impact- state judges gonna say their constitution is different enough from the Federal? Nope. It will have to be pretty specific to get that. This is not the way out.

Re: Democracy is over
 

Your crusty dick is a major part of the problem.

SlaveNo(Oh no he did't)More

Re: Democracy is over
 

Goddamnit I laughed at this.

Re: Democracy is over
 

I like slave, and my biggest lt regret is I have never done drinks with him, but I don't get this joke. I'd rather not focus on T's dick at all, but do not get why it might be crusty? funny how, like it amuses you?