#and reform the voting process

[defensenow]

#youtube #news #Campaign Finance Compliance #Election Spending #Political Contributions #Campaign Finance Violations #Campaign Finance Disclosure #Campaign Finance Reform #Campaign Finance Regulations #Political Campaign Financing #Campaign Finance Laws #Elections #Federal Election Commission #Federal Election Law #Political Funding #Money in Politics #Election Law #Voting Rights #Washington FPC #Political Campaigns #Electoral Process #2024 FEC Briefing

[palant1r]

the thing about voting for president in america is that, if you have decided it is morally wrong to vote for a person who has done or will do war crimes, or who will enable injustice in office, you cannot in good conscience ever vote again. like america is and always has been a genocidal empire that literally has always existed as an imperialist illegitimate state built on conquest and exploitation. morally "pure" participation in our political system simply is not a realistic thing to strive for.

as a citizen in america, you will both suffer from the consequences of local inequality/resource injustice and reap the benefits of being a part of the imperial core. this is inevitable. this is a way in which you will be part of the political system regardless of if you purport to abstain. not voting is not a conscientious objection to the system. it is a choice to continue to exist in a system, but give up any influence you may have over it.

like, withholding your vote/voting undecided in the primaries does send a meaningful message i think. but in the general election? not voting or voting third party is functionally a vote for trump because of how low voter turnout favors republicans. this is not a moral judgement but a political fact. there is no functional practical way to be neutral in the upcoming presidential election.

sucks, right? it sucks! it absolutely sucks! for the record, i really don't like that this is how things are, and i do fully believe that america sorely needs electoral reform, because the current system is a fucking farce!

but that's how it is. that's the reality of being a political participant in the electoral process of an empire. there is legitimate positive change to be had through biden. there is even more horrible negative consequences that will result from another trump presidency.

i'm not a fan of derisive posts referring to people withholding their vote because of gaza as "single issue voters." because like. yeah, actually, it IS morally defensible to have the prevention of a genocide be a single issue.

but withholding your vote for biden for gaza's sake isn't voting against gazan genocide. it's voting to intensify it. it's voting to end any chance at american pressure being put on israel to end it in the next four years.

and i understand if voting for genocide joe makes you feel dirty. i understand if you hate him. i hate him.

but being american means being a constant participant in systems that enable genocide. you pay taxes. you buy phones. this is not a moral judgement, but an emphasis that to attempt to absolve yourself of sin by divesting completely from any individual choice tainted with imperialism is a fool's errand. drawing the line at voting is simply not a rational ethical choice.

your individual choice will not make the genocide stop. collective action and other unified political strategies are infinitely more useful than withholding votes in the general election

and while you're doing those, show up to the polls in november and vote for biden.

#current events

[metamatar]

Hello! I wanted to ask, what does 'you can't vote out fascism' actually mean in india's context? Are we talking about how fascism necessarily captures institutions making democratic processes undemocratic? Or is it a wider commentary on how the ideology itself cant be defeated by vote alone?

Re this. You got it. That's why the post was about all the voter intimidation and rigging the BJP did. I didn't go into the second, but yes, since 2014, more and more the average indian citizen includes someone who lynches their neighbour on suspicion of having eaten beef, participates in rallies celebrating hindu rapists who have muslim victims, humiliates muslim students in their care and cheers the destruction of the homes of those deemed anti national.

Voting is not enough because fascism is a popular movement. You need to do on the ground pedagogical and propoganda work to deradicalise people, you need to fix the economic conditions that make fascism attractive, you need to abolish the rot that is hinduism and you need to reform institutions so they do not succumb to this shit as they have.

#asks #anon

[hedgehog-moss]

[...T]he state’s monopoly on violence is legitimate only insofar as legal and judiciary regulations enable [the people], formally and on principle, to wield power. [...] And this is where the problem lies in France in 2023. [...] Macron’s government has gone to great lengths to close all possible avenues through which society could warn it, control it, bring it to a compromise. As though there were room for nothing between obedience and riots.

The pension reform crisis is a perfect illustration of the state’s lack of capacity and willingness to obtain popular consent through peaceful, rather than brutal, means. Police brutality [against protesters], far from conferring any legitimacy, betrays the glaring lack of legitimacy of government policy. It’s because Macron’s government has become unable to legitimise its power in more subtle ways that it imposed this praetorian turn to the regime, leaving nothing but police force between itself and the people.

— Fabien Escalona, 1 avril 2023 (source in French) (text without paywall)

Not a very good translation but yeah that’s basically what I wrote after Sainte-Soline last week. When it comes to the pension reform, Macron’s government has dismissed unions, opinion polls, petitions, strikes, and massive peaceful protests, then they imposed it without letting the National Assembly vote, then they sent police to tear gas protesters and break strikes. Now they try to dismiss the protest movement by instrumentalising instances of violence and destruction which were rendered inevitable by the government’s rejection and repression of democratic processes and peaceful recourses.

#and the minister of the interior yesterday dismissing criticisms of police brutality against protesters #as ''intellectual terrorism from the far-left''... #this is fine. not fascist rhetoric at all

[odinsblog]

When most people talk about expanding the Supreme Court, they're talking about adding a few Justices, two or four to the bench. But I am not most people. I do not think we should add a few Justices to get into an endless tit for tat with Mitch McConnell and his Federalist Society forces. I think we should blow the lid clear off this incrementally institutionalized motherfucker, and add 20 Justices.

I'd like to tell you about my Court expansion plan and explain why adding many Justices instead of fewer Justices is actually a better reform, fixes more underlying problems with the Court, and works out to be less partisan or political than some of the more incremental plans out there.

Let's start with the basics.

Expanding the number of Justices on the Supreme Court can be done with a simple act of Congress, passed by the Senate and signed by the President. Court expansion does not become easier or harder based on the number of Justices you seek to add to the Court. From a civics perspective, the process to add two Justices to the Court is just the same as the process to add 20.

Arguably, the rationale is the same too.

The current plan, supported by some Democrats, is to add four Justices to the Supreme Court. Their arguments are that the Court has gotten woefully out of step with the American people and the elected branches of government, which is true.

They argue that the country is a lot bigger now than it was in 1869, when Congress set the number of Supreme Court Justices at nine, which is also true. Basically, all of these arguments flow together into the catchphrase, “we have 13 Circuit Courts of Appeal, and so we should have 13 Justices.”

See, back in the day, each Supreme Court Justice was responsible for one lower Circuit Court of Appeal. Procedurally, appeals from the lower circuits are heard first by the Justice responsible for that circuit. But now we have 13 lower Circuit Courts of Appeal, meaning some Justices have to oversee more than one. If we expanded the Court to 13 Justices, we'd get back to a one to one ratio for Supreme Court Justice per Circuit Court of Appeal.

But it doesn't actually matter how many circuits each Justice presides over, because all the Justices do is move an appeal from the lower court to the Supreme Court for the full Court to consider whether to hear the appeal.

Their function is purely clerical.

It doesn't matter.

One justice could oversee all 13 circuits while the other eight went fishing, kind of like hazing a rookie on a team. And it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in terms of the number of cases the Supreme Court hears. It's just a question of who has to work on Saturdays.

Indeed, I'm not even sure that I want the Court to hear more cases. These people are unelected, and these people already have too much power. More cases just gives them more opportunities to screw things up. I don't need the Court to make more decisions. I need the Court to make fewer shitty decisions. And for that, I need to reform how the Court makes those decisions. And for that, I need more people. And I need those people to make their decisions in panels.

Those lower courts, those 13 Circuit Courts of Appeal, almost all of them operate with more than nine judges. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has — wait for it — 29 judges!

All the lower courts use what's called a panel system. When they catch a case, three judges are chosen at random from all the judges on the circuit to hear the case. Those three judges then issue a ruling. If the majority of the circuit disagrees, they can vote to rehear the case as a full circuit.

The legal jargon here is called “en banc” when the full circuit hears the case.

But most of the time, that three judge panel ruling is the final ruling on the issue, with the circuit going en banc only when they believe the three judge panel got it clearly wrong.

Think about how different it would be if our Supreme Court operated on a panel system instead of showing up to Court knowing that six conservative Justices were against you, or the one or two conservative Justices that you invited onto your super yacht are guaranteed to hear your case.

You literally wouldn't know which Justices you'd get on your panel.

Even on a six-three conservative court, you might draw a panel that was two-to-one liberals, or you might draw Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett instead of Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch, which could make a huge difference. Either way, you wouldn't know which Justices you'd get.

Not only does that make a big difference in terms of the appearance of fairness, especially in this time when some Justices are openly corrupt, it also makes a big difference in terms of what kinds of cases and arguments people would bring to the Court. Without knowing which Justices they'd get, litigants and red state attorney generals would have to tailor their arguments to a more center mass, mainstream temperament, instead of merely shooting their shot and hoping their arch conservatives can bully a moderate or two to vote with them.

Now, you can do panels with nine or 13 Justices, but you pretty much have to do panels with 29 Justices. Overloading the Court with Justices would essentially force them to adopt the random assignment process used by every other Court.

That would be good.

Sure, litigants could always hope for en banc review, where the full partisan makeup of the Court could be brought to bear. BUT, getting a majority of 29 Justices to overrule a panel decision requires 15 votes. Consider that right now you only need four votes, a minority of the nine member Court, to get the full Court to hear a case.

I'm no mathlete, but I'm pretty sure that 15 is just a higher bar.

That brings me to my next big point about expanding the Court to 29: Moderation.

Most people say that they do not want the Court to be too extreme to either side. Generally, I think that argument is bollocks. I, in fact, do want the Court to be extreme in its defense of voting rights, women's rights, and human rights. But maybe I'm weird.

If you want the Supreme Court to be a more moderate institution, then you should want as many Justices on the Supreme Court as possible. Why? Because cobbling together a 15-14 majority on a 29 member Court will often yield a more moderate decision than a five-four majority on a nine member Court.

Not going to lie. The law is complicated, and judges are quirky. If you invited five judges off the street over for a barbecue, they wouldn't be able to agree on whether hot dogs and hamburgers count as sandwiches.

It's simply easier to get five people to do something extreme than it is to get 15 people to do something extreme.

Think about your own life.

If you wanted to hike up a damn mountain, that is an activity for you and a couple of your closest friends. You're not taking 15 people to climb a mountain. That's not even a hike. That's an expedition, and you're expecting one or two of them to be eaten by bears on the way to the top. But if you're organizing an outdoor activity for 15 people, you're going to go to the park, and your friends will be expected to bring their own beer.

Most likely, adding 20 Justices would moderate the conservative majority just by putting enough people and personalities in the mix that it would be harder for them to do their most destructive work.

Just think about how the five worst senators you know, or the five worst congresspeople you can think of, often don't get their way because they can't even convince other members of their party to go along with their nihilist conservative ride.

Note, I said Conservative majority.

The astute reader will notice that I have not said that I want to add 20 fire-breathing liberal comrades who will stick it to Das Kapital for the rest of their lives. No, I believe the benefits of this kind of court expansion are so great — panels and the moderation from having more justices trying to cobble together en banc majority opinions — that I'd be willing to split the new justices ten and ten with conservative choices.

A 16-13 conservative leaning court would just be better than a six-three conservative court, even if my guys are still in the minority. The only litmus test I'd have for this plan is that all 20 have to be objectively pro-Democratic, self-government. All 20 have to think the Supreme Court has too much power. You give me 20 people who think the court should not be rulers in robes, and I'll take my chances.

However, there's no objective reason for elected Democrats to be as nice and friendly as I am when adding 20 Justices. Off the top, seats should be split eleven to nine, because Mitch McConnell and the Republicans must be made to pay for their shenanigans with the Merrick Garland nomination under Barack Obama. Republicans stole a seat. Democrats should take it back, full stop. I will take no further questions about this.

From there, this is where Democrats could, I don't know, engage in political hardball instead of being SAPS like always.

You see, right now, Republicans are dead set against court expansion because they are winning with the Court as it is. I can make all of the pro-reform, good government arguments under the sun, and the Republicans will ignore them because, again, they're winning right now.

But if you put forward a bill to add 20 seats, the Republican incentives possibly change: obstruct, and the Democrats push through court expansion on their own, and add 20 Justices of their own choosing, and you end up with people like, well, like me on the court. Or Mitch McConnell could release Senators to vote for the plan, and Republicans can share in the bounty.

It puts a different kind of question to McConnell: Join, get nine conservative Justices and keep a 15-14 conservative majority on the court, or Obstruct, and create a 23 to six liberal majority on the court, and trust that Republicans will take over the House, Senate, and White House so they can add 20 of their own Justices in the future.

Note that McConnell will have to run that whole table while overcoming a super liberal Supreme Court that restores the Voting Rights Act and strikes down Republican gerrymanders. Good luck, Mitch.

My plan wins either way.

Either we get a 29 person court that is more moderate, we get a 29 person court that is uber liberal, or McConnell does run the table and we end up with a 49 person court or a 69 person court. And while Republicans are in control of that bloated body, everybody understands that the Court is just a political branch there to rubber-stamp the acts of the President who appointed them.

Perhaps then, voters would start voting based on who they want to be in control of that court, instead of who they want to have a beer with.

The court is either fixed, or neutered.

It's a win-win.

I know 20 is a big number. I know we've all been institutionalized to believe that incremental change is the only change possible. And I know it sounds fanciful to ask for 20 when the starting offer from the establishment of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and President Joe Biden, is zero.

But like a doctor with poor bedside manner, I'm less interested in people's feelings and more interested in fixing the problem.

If you give me two Justices or four Justices, I can reverse a number of conservative policies that they've shoved through a Supreme Court that has already been illegitimately packed with Republican appointees. If you give me a few Justices, I can reestablish a center-left, pro-democracy majority… at least until those new Justices die at the wrong time, under the wrong president.

But if you give me 20 Justices, I can fix the whole fucking thing.

—ELIE MYSTAL, In Contempt of Court

#politics #elie mystal #scotus #court packing #packing the court #roberts court #john roberts #federalist society #the federalist society #republicans

[racefortheironthrone]

Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

#labor law #labor law reform #labor movement #trade unions #unions #union movement #public policy

[qqueenofhades]

I'm seeing a lot of leftists complain about Biden not being able to do anything and how Republican presidents were able to write executive orders for seemingly whatever they wanted, and I got confused. So i wanted to ask: why does it seem like Republicans can pass whatever they want whenever they want but Democrats can't?

Welp. This is, yet again, another Online Leftist "argument" that isn't correct, doesn't give an accurate view of the situation, and doesn't propose any helpful alternatives. I know that the Republicans can often feel like an overwhelming and unstoppable evil machine, but the truth is that despite the chaos and damage of Trump's four years to American democratic society and sociopolitical norms, he didn't actually pass much legislation -- even with a compliant Republican-controlled Congress from 2016-18. The Republicans didn't even succeed in legislatively repealing the ACA, despite trying zillions of times to do it, and mostly just passed tax cuts for rich people and other bad economic policy, since they could do it with budget reconciliation (the same process that Democrats used to pass the American Rescue Plan with only 50 votes in the Senate and no Republican support). Because budget/financial legislation isn't subject to the filibuster, the Republicans could pass it with the same simple-majority vote. But they didn't really succeed in doing much else.

Next, Trump's most onerous and infamous executive orders -- withdrawing from WHO and the Paris Agreement, the "Muslim Ban," etc etc -- were all in the list of things that Biden reversed on his first day in office. This is why, as myself and others have said, policy based solely on executive orders is never a long-lasting or ideal way to do something, since it's subject to instant repeal if an administration with different ideological priorities happens to succeed you. Besides, this whole "Biden should just executive order everything!!!" demand basically means that he should just... be Trump and try to exercise the presidency like a king? Online Leftists have no patience for or interest in the American democratic legislative process any more than the fascist wingnuts, and while I get the desire for a quick solution, that's still not going to be a magical panacea that fixes everything. It's not an excuse or an escape from having to put in the work.

Right now, Democratic control of Congress is slender and very contingent on whether Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema feel like supporting something in the Senate, and as long as they won't budge on reforming the filibuster, that means Democrats are likewise limited in what they can do from a legislative perspective. It's unfortunate that people deliberately don't understand that there's a huge difference between 60 Democratic senators and 50 Democratic senators, but there is, and since the Obama-era 59/60 Democratic Senate included seats in red states that a Democrat will never win again in the post-Trump era, it's always going to be a matter of very thin margins and major wrangling. None of this is to say that the Democrats shouldn't be doing more; obviously, they should, and I was sharply critical of Biden's initial response to the Roe overturn. Everything I have seen since has confirmed my opinion that the administration wasn't prepared, might not have thought it would really happen even after the draft leaked, and were wary of taking too "drastic" steps or openly trying to overrule the Supreme Court. This results from, as I have said before, Biden's over-reliance on his outdated belief that American democratic institutions will function more or less properly, even if they're currently staffed and controlled by terrible anti-democrat fascist evangelical nutcases. And that is... just not true, unfortunately.

That said, Biden has picked up the pace in recent days: he issued an executive order to maintain abortion access insofar as possible, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance that any federally funded hospital must provide a life-saving abortion regardless of state laws, Democrats in the Senate are trying to pass legislation preserving the right to travel out of state for care, and there is talk of Biden declaring a federal public health emergency, which would likewise preserve access at least in the life-threatening cases. None of this happened in the first weeks after the overturn, and I'm glad to see it happening now, even if there are still more steps to be taken. But as I have explained many, many times, an executive order does not magically work everything out and fix it immediately. It directs the relevant federal departments to come up with and implement a solution, and that still takes time and effort. And as I said, it is the least durable and most easily overturned form of policymaking, and should not be the option of first resort for any number of reasons.

The current leftist demand just seems to be "issue an executive order that instantly fixes everything and makes SCOTUS irrelevant so we don't have to feel any guilt about not voting for Clinton and laughing off everyone who warned us that this was going to happen." And that, likewise, is totally unrealistic. Biden can take concrete steps with his executive authority to ameliorate the situation to some degree; he has done some already, and hopefully will be pushed into more. But there is no way to simply remove SCOTUS as a major political piece, or make its decisions irrelevant, or wave our hand and pretend it doesn't exist. There are still obviously far more barriers to abortion care and access than there were while Roe was the law of the land, and that was the direct and intended result of them overturning it. That is not going to disappear.

Anyway. The claim that "Republicans can always do whatever they want and Democrats can't because they just don't try" is not true. As noted, the Republicans didn't actually do that much during Trump's time in office, and all their major victories now are coming as a result of the Republican-hijacked SCOTUS handing down decisions that are not easy to reverse, challenge, or otherwise get around. This is exactly why the Republicans played the long game with the direct goal being to capture the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, and why Democrats need to expand or significantly reform it if any of us plan on having any civil rights again in our lifetimes. But to do that, we need to get an actual working majority in the Senate, hold the House, and then keep the pressure up for the promised filibuster reform and subsequent legislation to actually get done. I know that pointing out that things take time and have concrete steps that need to be accomplished in a certain order isn't as satisfying or pithy as "just do it all now and stop making excuses!!!", but it is, alas, still the case.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[tanadrin]

@zvaigzdelasas arguing in replies is annoying, so i am just going to put this in a post

Khmer Rouge wouldn't have been what it was without the US overthrowing Sihanouk bc of his perceived socialist sympathies and instituting & upholding the violent Lon Nol regime. You are in the imperial core in 2023, you are not in Angkor Wat in 1970

not my main point, which is just that revolutions (at least in the classic sense of storming-the-barricades or even just extraconstitutional shenanigans) are chaotic situations with unpredictable outcomes. you can get lots of positive changes. you can get lets of shitty ones. they're great for authoritarians and fascists in equal measure to sainted socialists or w/e. they do not solve the problem of having to do politics, but the rhetoric around the One True Revolution acts like it's the end of a long process, and not the beginning of a new, much more dangerous one.

if by "revolution" you just mean "major set of reforms carried out by winning control of existing political structures," sure, that's a lot less risky. but this would involve engaging with those wicked corrupt and nasty institutions of liberal democracy people are always so scornful of.

liberal democracy has pathways for lasting change [Citation Needed]

since the middle of the 19th century the US and Britain have seen massive improvements in income distributions, the creation of and the expansion of the welfare state, universal male suffrage, women getting the right to vote, (in the US) black people getting the right to vote, gay people going from criminals to a minority with rights protected under the law (including gay marriage), plus a laundry list of smaller but still important and lasting democratic, economic, and social reforms. yes, progress is not monotonic. no, no party is credibly threatening to (say) reimpose legal segregation in the US, or strip women of the right to vote anywhere in Europe. "nothing ever gets better" is an absolutely deranged take, especially when a lot of the reason things have gotten better is leftists willing to fight for improvements even if they fell short of total communist revolution.

You're aware of the world historic wave of reaction going across the western world like, right now right

Obviously! And I love the idea that a communist society would be magically free of prejudice or reactionaries leveraging it for power. Because it wouldn't be! And socialist countries generally have a human rights record that reflects similar issues!

(here I said even this language of "imperial core" involves assumptions which are silly and which i'm not willing to grant. marxists use the word "empire" in a way which is not actually very useful and has little explanatory power)

"within the geographic distribution of the highest value added surplus" very obvious explanatory power when the question is one of control over global labor capacity

i don't know if you're being deliberately disingenuous or what but the marxist use of the term "imperialism" is in fact much more sophisticated than that

and i think it's wrong in important ways, especially in the postcolonial period. the usage originated when colonial empires in the literal sense were very important; now, not so much. while there are important postcolonial dynamics of exploitation worth talking about, i do not think the framework of imperialism as articulated in the 19th century is anywhere close to sufficient, and it should be abandoned.

also don't wanna get bogged down in the weeds, just pointing out that one of the really irritating things about arguing with communists is you use words in annoying ways that inhibit rather than facilitate analysis.

And these are things that, for example, the AfD aren't trying to roll back?

you know you can look up the AfD's party platform online? like it's full of stupid, awful, xenophobic shit, and they are rightly reviled, but "return to the constitution and political structures of the German Empire" is not in there. i think the fact that even the biggest party of right-wing reactionaries can't imagine rolling back the clock more than a few decades is noteworthy--there are political gains over the history of modern leftism which are now so universally respected literally no one remembers we had a fight about them once.

like, obviously things have gotten better for the vast majority of people in germany, britain, or the US since the 1870s, and i don't know what we accomplish by pretending otherwise? except maybe creating some kind of martyr complex where we pretend leftism (and the labor movement in particular) is much less effective than it actually is.

i am going to mute replies to this and my other posts in this series, because on this particular morning i would rather have a root canal than argue about the word "imperalism," and i suspect this is the kind of argument that could go on literally forever. i do not think we are likely to persuade one another, but i have laid out why i find the contemporary marxist perspective on these things deeply unpersuasive (to the extent i can without rehashing a bunch of old posts), so i feel like i have said my piece.

#and i still don't feel like the real meat of my argument was engaged with #a lot of little smug jabs don't really constitute an argument

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The fate of the Senate filibuster is on the ballot in the 2024 election as Democrats rally around weakening the 60-vote threshold to pass major legislation like codifying abortion rights and bolstering federal voting rights.

If President Joe Biden is re-elected and Democrats control the Senate, they would probably have the votes to change the filibuster. The cause has become a litmus test in the party, backed by senators who will remain in office next year, as well as the party’s candidates in key races that’ll decide which party controls the majority.

Meanwhile, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who cast decisive votes in 2022 to block Democrats from weakening the filibuster, are retiring. Manchin said he has “grave concerns” the filibuster will survive after he leaves.

Under the current filibuster, 60 votes are needed to begin and end debate on most legislation, meaning 41 senators can effectively veto bills. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said he’s optimistic Democrats will have enough support for “reforming the filibuster and imposing a talking filibuster” in the next Congress, so a minority can’t block bills without continuously holding the floor and talking.

“Unfortunately, two folks decided to support the no-effort obstruction, as opposed to the talking filibuster,” Merkley told NBC News. “But I think everyone who’s staying is pretty supportive of going through the process of making the Senate work again.”

It would have far-reaching impacts in establishing majority rule in a chamber that has normalized requiring a supermajority to pass most bills over the last two decades, with a key exception for temporary changes to taxes and spending. Such a change would be celebrated by progressives, who call the modern filibuster an undemocratic chokepoint for popular legislation.

Proponents call the filibuster a rare tool to encourage bipartisanship and promote stability in lawmaking. But even moderate Democrats say the modern 60-vote threshold makes the Senate dysfunctional.

“I’ve been here just over three years, and I’ve never seen an organization with rules like the United States Senate,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former astronaut. “If NASA had these rules, the rocket ship would never leave the launchpad. So as changes to the rules come up, I’ll evaluate it based on the merits.”

Many Republican senators insist they’d preserve the filibuster, even if they capture control of the White House and Congress. They include conservative Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who said he “absolutely” supports the 60-vote rule.

“We’re united in that. We realize the tables will turn, and if they had ultimate control, this country would be over,” Johnson said, calling it a bulwark against “socialist and radical left policies.” He said that if Donald Trump wins the presidency, he could use executive power to secure the border if Democrats filibuster immigration bills.

DEMOCRATS' PATH TO AN ANTI-FILIBUSTER MAJORITY

Changing the filibuster rules would require a simple majority in the Senate. If Democrats end up with 50 or more seats and have Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie, they'd most likely have the votes.

With Manchin retiring, West Virginia’s open seat is all but certain to flip to the GOP this fall. But Democrats have a plausible — albeit difficult — path to hold their remaining 50 votes.

It requires holding seats in red-leaning Montana and Ohio, as well as in the purple states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.

The likely Democratic nominee to replace Sinema in Arizona, Rep. Ruben Gallego, promises that if he is elected he would support “waiving the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade.”

Democratic candidates for open seats in California (Rep. Adam Schiff), Michigan (Rep. Elissa Slotkin), Delaware (Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester) and Maryland (county executive Angela Alsobrooks) have all called for eliminating the filibuster.

“I am, like, loud and proud on reforming the filibuster so we can vote on gun laws, voter access, women’s rights,” Slotkin told constituents in a video she posted on Instagram. “All those things could be voted on tomorrow if we only needed 51 instead of 60.”

Alsobrooks, who won the Democratic primary in Maryland on Tuesday, says on her website: “Angela firmly believes that the filibuster in the Senate should be eliminated.”

Her GOP opponent, former Gov. Larry Hogan, said he’s “a big supporter of the filibuster.”

Schiff said he’d prefer major swings in policy to the current gridlock, emphasizing that killing the filibuster is the only way to pass abortion rights, gun safety and voting rights measures and to mitigate climate change. He said he doesn’t worry about Republicans’ using a filibuster-free Senate to reverse liberal gains when they take power.

“The Republican policies are so reactionary, backward and unpopular that should they ever really be in a position to put them into effect, they’ll be voted out of office in a heartbeat,” he said.

And the Democrats running in the red-leaning states of Texas (Rep. Colin Allred) and Florida (former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell) have also championed exceptions to the filibuster to establish federal abortion rights. The GOP is favored in those states, but Democrats can hold the majority without them.

Biden has said he supports carve-outs to the filibuster to pass voting rights and abortion rights legislation. The White House declined to comment beyond his public remarks and didn't say whether that would extend to other priorities, like gun legislation.

TRUMP HAS PUSHED TO NUKE THE FILIBUSTER

If Trump and Republicans sweep the election, GOP senators would probably face pressure from Trump to do away with the filibuster. He repeatedly demanded that they nuke the 60-vote rule during his term as president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused in 2017 and 2018. Although McConnell is stepping down as GOP leader, it's unclear whether Trump would be more successful this time.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he expects a push to kill the filibuster to toughen immigration laws if the GOP wins in November.

“Quite honestly, if we run the table politically in November and we have control of both chambers and President Trump has the White House, it wouldn’t surprise me if getting additional tools to get the border under control would be used as an argument for nuking the filibuster,” Tillis told reporters.

But he said he would adamantly oppose that.

“The day Republicans vote to nuke it is the day I resign,” Tillis said, arguing that it would “destroy the Senate.”

Trump campaign spokespeople didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he’s open to potential changes.

“Never say never, but I can’t think of anything that comes to mind immediately,” he said. “The filibuster has meant different things over time. And there are different ways to implement it. So we could talk about how the filibuster is structured. Do you have to hold the floor or not, etc. We could probably have a conversation on that.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who faces a competitive re-election bid, said he’s committed to preserving the 60-vote rule even if his party sweeps the election and Democrats use it to stymie legislation.

“Yes,” he replied when asked.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who also faces re-election this fall, said, “I believe in the filibuster.”

Even if Republicans have control and it threatens their agenda?

“I believe in the filibuster,” he repeated.

#us politics #news #2024 elections #filibuster #Democrats #republicans #us senate #sen. Joe Manchin #sen. Kyrsten Sinema #Sen. Jeff Merkley #Sen. Mark Kelly #Sen. Ron Johnson #Ruben Gallego #Adam Schiff #Elissa Slotkin #Lisa Blunt Rochester #Angela Alsobrooks #Colin Allred #Debbie Mucarsel-Powell #Sen. Thom Tillis #Sen. Josh Hawley #Sen. Ted Cruz #Sen. Rick Scott #2024

[random-thought-depository]

""Moreover, it turns out that the United States is not all that tightfisted when it comes to social spending. “If you count all public benefits offered by the federal government, America’s welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France’s,” Desmond tells us. Why doesn’t this largesse accomplish more?

For one thing, it unduly assists the affluent. That statistic about the U.S. spending almost as much as France on social welfare, he explains, is accurate only “if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line.” To enjoy most of these, you need to have a well-paying job, a home that you own, and probably an accountant (and, if you’re really in clover, a money manager).

“The American government gives the most help to those who need it least,” Desmond argues. “This is the true nature of our welfare state, and it has far-reaching implications, not only for our bank accounts and poverty levels, but also for our psychology and civic spirit.” Americans who benefit from social spending in the form of, say, a mortgage-interest tax deduction don’t see themselves as recipients of governmental generosity. The boon it offers them may be as hard for them to recognize and acknowledge as the persistence of poverty once was to Harrington’s suburban housewives and professional men. These Americans may be anti-government and vote that way. They may picture other people, poor people, as weak and dependent and themselves as hardworking and upstanding. Desmond allows that one reason for this is that tax breaks don’t feel the same as direct payments. Although they may amount to the same thing for household incomes and for the federal budget—“You can benefit a family by lowering its tax burden or by increasing its benefits, same difference”—they are associated with an obligation and a procedure that Americans, in particular, find onerous. Tax-cutting Republican lawmakers want the process to be both difficult and Swiss-cheesed with loopholes. (“Taxes should hurt,” Ronald Reagan once said.) But that’s not the only reason. What Desmond calls the “rudest explanation” is that if, for whatever reason, we get a tax break, most of us like it. That’s the case for people affluent and lucky enough to take advantage of the legitimate breaks designed for their benefit, and for the wily super-rich who game the system with expensive lawyering and ingenious use of tax shelters.

And there are other ways, Desmond points out, that government help gets thwarted or misdirected. When President Clinton instituted welfare reform, in 1996, pledging to “transform a broken system that traps too many people in a cycle of dependence,” an older model, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or A.F.D.C., was replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. Where most funds administered by A.F.D.C. went straight to families in the form of cash aid, TANF gave grants to states with the added directive to promote two-parent families and discourage out-of-wedlock childbirth, and let the states fund programs to achieve those goals as they saw fit. As a result, “states have come up with rather creative ways to spend TANF dollars,” Desmond writes. “Nationwide, for every dollar budgeted for TANF in 2020, poor families directly received just 22 cents. Only Kentucky and the District of Columbia spent over half of their TANF funds on basic cash assistance.” Between 1999 and 2016, Oklahoma directed more than seventy million dollars toward initiatives to promote marriage, offering couples counselling and workshops that were mostly open to people of all income levels. Arizona used some of the funds to pay for abstinence education; Pennsylvania gave some of its TANF money to anti-abortion programs. Mississippi treated its TANF funds as an unexpected Christmas present, hiring a Christian-rock singer to perform at concerts, for instance, and a former professional wrestler—the author of an autobiography titled “Every Man Has His Price”—to deliver inspirational speeches. (Much of this was revealed by assiduous investigative reporters, and by a 2020 audit of Mississippi’s Department of Human Services.) Moreover, because states don’t have to spend all their TANF funds each year, many carry over big sums. In 2020, Tennessee, which has one of the highest child-poverty rates in the nation, left seven hundred and ninety million dollars in TANF funds unspent."

- The New Yorker: "How America Manufactures Poverty" by Margaret Talbot (review of Matthew Desmond's Poverty by America).

#that last quoted paragraph is infuriating #class politics

[transboysokka]

BREAKING UPDATE [Tuesday Night 5/28] : Taiwan's Controversial Legislative Reform Bill PASSED

A democracy-threatening bill passed in an undemocratic way.

Here is what this means and what happens next...

(For full context on this, please refer to this post)

What specifically passed?

The president will be "invited" to give a state of the nation address every year and must answer questions on the spot

People can be summoned to answer questions to lawmakers, no "reverse questioning" allowed (the meaning of this term has still not been specified)

If people being questioned refuse to answer or do anything in "contempt of the Legislature" they can get a huge fine

The legislature can conduct investigative hearings and can request documents from the government, military, companies or actually anybody. If you don't provide them, you get fined.

Hearings will be public unless they need to be secret for national security/trade secret/etc reasons

If you don't show up for your hearing, you get a big fine

If you lie you get fined

For other details, please refer to this article.

Separately, "Contempt of Legislature" was added to the Criminal Code.

How did it pass so fast?

Interestingly enough, it did take three days to get through the second reading of the bill, and that was WITH undemocratic show-of-hands votes and only allowing the DPP to speak for three minutes at a time, one speaker per article.

Today's third reading took less than an hour.

Furthermore, some legislators allege that there were changes made to the wording of the bill before they even had time to read it. They were voting on something they hadn't read.

What does the KMT want to do with these new powers?

A big part of this is about political theatre, which is a huge part of Taiwanese politics, and humiliation. It's also important to note the discussion that has been going on about how it will not be necessary to have a lawyer present to answer questions.

KMT leadership has already announced plans to establish a "special investigative unit" to deal with fraud from the DPP, basically punishing their enemies. First on their list will be officials from the most recent presidential administration, but the extent of their aims is unclear since they frequently use "fraud" as an explanation for things they don't like. They claimed, for example, that the tens of thousands of protestors showing up in front of the legislature lately were hired by the DPP.

The KMT has also tonight called for the abolishment of the Control Yuan, one of the five branches of government in Taiwan, demonstrating their willingness to dismantle the system of checks and balances keeping Taiwan's democracy in place.

The president can't veto, so what happens next?

For now it seems that the protests will continue. 30,000 protestors showed up outside the legislature last Tuesday, 100,000 last Friday, and 70,000 today. This coincides with growing actions in many other cities around the country.

This bill has been publicly condemned by over one hundred legal scholars and also the Control Yuan.

The next options now are:

The Executive Yuan has ten days to basically send the bill back to the legislature. At that point the LY could vote to uphold the bill within 15 days and then it pretty much would have to be law.

More feasible at present would be to go in the constitutional direction. The Constitutional Court could review the law, suspending it in the process before their decision is announced.

A referendum could be held to repeal the law. This would be time- and resource-consuming but it would be an option. It's hard to say if it would pass because the people would overall vote to repeal but the KMT has a lot of influence with powerful families and gangsters, so it's not for sure what the votes would say.

The point is there are still options! The Bluebird Movement now is going to start focusing on more local actions, and we'll have to see what those will be.

Why don't we just occupy the Legislative Yuan? It worked for the Sunflower Movement in 2014.

While it seems direct action may now be necessary, that wouldn't work again. A huge reason the LY occupation was successful in Sunflower was because the people in charge of the LY didn't let police in. Under current leadership that... almost certainly wouldn't happen. Think back to the attempt to occupy the Executive Yuan in that same movement and how it brought out the most devastating use of police force sense the martial law period.

Any occupation likely to take place would probably just be the continued presence of protestors outside of the legislature like we've been seeing.

We'll have to see what action is called for in the future. There's still hope for now!

This is a developing story, but one thing I urge as the Bluebird Movement continues to gather steam and garner more international attention: Be careful of misinformation! Try to read sources from inside Taiwan!

Further Reading for Now

Taiwan's legislature passes major reforms amidst controversy (TVBS)

#no image description but honestly it's not important #taiwan #bluebird movement #im so tired im sure ive missed things but meh #台灣 #青鳥行動

[coochiequeens]

The truly sad thing is that TRAs are not going to take a moment for self reflection and look at the perverts that have overun the TQ+ movement. Instead they are going to lash out at "TERFs".

Judges have ruled that the UK government acted lawfully in blocking Scotland's gender self-ID reforms.

Legislation making it easier for people to change their legally-recognised sex was passed by the Scottish Parliament last year.

The UK government blocked it from becoming law over fears it would impact on equality laws across Great Britain.

The Court of Session in Edinburgh has now rejected a Scottish government legal challenge to the veto.

The Scottish government has 21 days to decide whether it wants to appeal against the ruling, and the case could ultimately end up in the Supreme Court in London.

The legislation received cross-party support in Holyrood, passing by 86 votes to 39 after a highly-charged debate.

Campaigners against the reforms warned the legislation could risk the safety of women and girls in same-sex spaces such as hospital wards and refuges.

Supporters argued it would make the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate (GRC) easier and less traumatic for trans people.

The legislation would remove the need for trans people to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a doctor before they are allowed to change their legally-recognised sex in Scotland, and would lower the age that someone can apply for a GRC from 18 to 16.

The period in which applicants would need to have lived in their acquired gender would be cut from two years to three months.

The UK government stepped in to block the bill from receiving royal assent after it was passed by MSPs, using powers contained in section 35 of the Scotland Act for the first time.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack raised concerns that the reforms could adversely impact on the 2010 Equality Act, which applies in Scotland, England and Wales and sets out protections for groups including women and transgender people.

The Scottish government challenged the move at the Court of Session - Scotland's highest civil court - with its top law officer, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, arguing that Mr Jack did not have "reasonable grounds" to block the bill.

Ms Bain also claimed that if the UK government was successful, Westminster "could veto practically any act of the Scottish Parliament having an impact on reserved matters because he disagreed with it on policy grounds".

But in her written ruling, judge Lady Haldane dismissed the Scottish government's appeal and said the block on the legislation was lawful.

She said Mr Jack followed correct legal procedures when he made his decision to invoke section 35 and that the Scottish government had failed to show that he had made legal errors.

The judge wrote: "I cannot conclude that he (Mr Jack) failed in his duty to take such steps as were reasonable in all the circumstances to acquaint himself with material sufficient to permit him to reach the decision that he did."

Lady Haldane also said that "Section 35 does not, in and of itself, impact on the separation of powers or other fundamental constitutional principle. Rather it is itself part of the constitutional framework."

Welcoming the judgement, Mr Jack said it "upholds my decision to prevent the Scottish government's gender recognition legislation from becoming law".

He added: "I was clear that this legislation would have had adverse effects on the operation of the law as it applies to reserved matters, including on important Great Britain-wide equality protections.

"Following this latest court defeat for the Scottish government, their ministers need to stop wasting taxpayers' money pursuing needless legal action and focus on the real issues which matter to people in Scotland - such as growing the economy and cutting waiting lists."

Alister Jack blocked the legislation because of its potential impact on equalities law that applies across Scotland, England and Wales

Humza Yousaf decided to proceed with the legal challenge shortly after succeeding Nicola Sturgeon - a passionate supporter of trans rights - as first minister earlier this year.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he described the ruling as a "dark day for devolution".

Mr Yousaf said: "Today's judgment confirms beyond doubt that devolution is fundamentally flawed. The court has confirmed that legislation passed by a majority in Holyrood can be struck down by Westminster.

"The only way to guarantee we get true self-government is through independence. Sovereignty should lie with the people of Scotland, not a Westminster government we didn't vote for with the ability to overrule our laws."

He was the only one of the three candidates in the SNP leadership contest who backed taking legal action and the issue has been deeply divisive within the party.

Colin Macfarlane, director of nations at LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, said the ruling would "mean more uncertainty for trans people in Scotland who will be waiting once again to see whether they will be able to have their gender legally recognised through a process that is in line with leading nations like Ireland, Canada and New Zealand."

Labour's shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray said it was "disappointing this legalisation ended in the courts but this ruling should be respected".

Shortly after the reforms were passed, double rapist Isla Bryson - who changed gender after being arrested for attacking two women - was remanded to a women's jail.

Bryson was subsequently moved to a male prison after the case sparked widespread anger. The Scottish government said the new legislation had no impact on the decision about where Bryson was held.

As befitting an unprecedented case, this is in Lady Haldane's words a "novel and complex" ruling.

She actually concluded in part that this is a situation where many decisions could have been taken, and that "there is possibly no single right answer" - but that the courts should only intervene in the case of a clear error in law.

The judge concluded that Alister Jack was entitled to make a decision on this, and that he had taken the proper steps to come to a view, without going into the even knottier territory of whether it was the right one.

All of that complexity means there could be room for appeal.

The Scottish government will be combing through the ruling to see if there are grounds to go back to court.

Mr Jack has urged them not to, telling them not to waste public funds on further legal action.

But ministers will perhaps put more weight on the position of the Scottish Greens, their partners in government, who are absolutely furious about the "horrible, heartbreaking and unjust" outcome.

Challenging UK ministers on this has been a red line for the Greens in the past. It may be that Scottish ministers have little choice but to fight on if they are to keep their partnership government together.

#UK #scotland #Gender self ID laws #Court of Session in Edinburgh #TRAs want to make it easier for people as young as 16 to legally change their gender #The time spent being required to socially transition first would be reduced from 2 years to a mere three months #Three months would be a honeymoon period #2010 Equality Act

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Piper at The View from Rural Missouri:

Missouri was the first state to ban abortion after Roe fell. We are on our way to overturning that ban. I can’t believe I just wrote those words… Missouri currently has one of the most egregious and cruel bans in the country. We have an 8-week ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. There were only 170 abortions obtained in the entire state in 2020, the year after the initial ban passed. There is estimated to have been around 6,000 pregnancies in Missouri due to rape since Roe fell, though. A disturbing trend is becoming clear, state-mandated pregnancies are happening, but there is good news to share. Friday, May 17th, was the last day of the 2024 legislative session, and the Missouri Democratic minority blocked the #1 priority of the GOP supermajority, Initiative Petition Reform.

The GOP planned to strip us of one person, one vote this session. They planned to “reform” the Initiative Petition process and dispossess our votes and dilute our voices. The GOP needed to pass reform to keep abortion from winning on the November ballot. The initiative petition, or IP, process allows citizens to collect signatures to place a new statute or constitutional amendment on the ballot to be voted on by constituents. In Missouri, we have used the IP process to beat back Right to Work, to allow for medical and recreational marijuana, and to expand Medicaid. We have been very effective in voting in progressive policies through the IP process, which is exactly why the GOP wanted to change the rules — they know abortion is almost certain to pass if it makes it onto the November ballot.

The Democratic minority stood up to the bullies in the GOP and won. Democratic Senators filibustered for about 50 hours on the last few days of the session. They were very loud about what the GOP was planning to do — they effectively posted about the filibuster and the proposed trickery on social media. The Dems told their constituents about how the GOP planned to trick voters into giving away their votes. The Democrats never stopped pushing back. This is a victory for every Missourian. But, it is also a message to every GOP-dominated state in the union. A legislative minority can beat a supermajority.

Jess Piper reports in her Substack blog that Missouri's voters are likely to repeal their draconian abortion ban this fall, thanks to the efforts of the Show-Me State's Senate Democrats filibustering to stop SJR74 that would have ended one person, one vote.

#2024 Missouri Elections #2024 Ballot Measures and Referendums #2024 Elections #Jess Piper #Missouri #Abortion #Missouri SJR74 #Missouri SJR74 Filibuster

[jewishconvertthings]

Hello,

I’m considering converting and have been for a long time, but I’m not sure whether to go with a reform rabbi or a conservative rabbi for the conversion. Reform Judaism is probably what I would practice after converting, but I also know that reform conversions are not recognized by some other rabbis and branches of Judaism. I want to be able to travel to different places and visit different communities and still be considered a Jew. But, I’m wondering how much this would actually be affected by me converting with a reform rabbi instead of a conservative rabbi. Am I actually going to be asked what branch I converted with? Am I ever going to have to “prove” that I’m really Jewish? Or will most people and communities just accept that I am if I say I am?

Hi anon,

So I'm not sure how this applies out abroad, but assuming you're in the US, many/most liberal movements will accept each other's conversions. You may occasionally come across a Conservative shul that is more stringent about you needing to have had kabbalat mitzvot as part of your conversion, along with all of the other traditional steps. Most Reform rabbis strongly encourage (but some do not require) you to have a brit milah or hatafat dam brit (if relevant to your anatomy) and/or tevilah (immersion in the mikvah.) All rabbis require a significant period of structured study; that may be a reading list for self study or it may be a Judaism 101 class. All rabbis are going to want you to spend significant time within the community to experience the holidays, Shabbat, the people, and the culture to make sure this is your forever home first. You will then need to have a beit din to finalize the process when you and your rabbi both think you are ready.

If you are wanting your conversion to be accepted by the widest swath of liberal Jews, you should make sure that you complete all the above-mentioned steps, including mikvah and (if relevant) having a bris (whether that's a hatafat dam brit or brit milah.) The Conservative movement requires all of these steps, and also requires that you accept responsibility for all of the mitzvot and the binding nature of halacha (kabbalat mitzvot.) The Reform movement doesn't include this part because it fundamentally doesn't view halacha as binding. While many Conservative communities/rabbis will overlook this last one in general, they may become more strict if you are, say, trying to become a long-term Conservative Jew and/or a member of the shul. (I will say, though, that the Conservative movement doesn't require its affiliated shuls to require that all voting members are halachicly Jewish to community standards. This was a way to include more Jewish adjacent or Jewish but not halachicly Jewish members of the community. So it honestly probably wouldn't even get brought up in that situation either.) If you are trying to get married by a Conservative rabbi, you may run into trouble without briefly redoing the beit din to include kabbalat mitzvot, but I think that's probably the most likely scenario in which this information would be chased down including a paper trail and phone call to your conversion rabbi. Otherwise I seriously doubt it would come up.

As for just rolling through a minyan in your travels (post-conversion)? Literally just tell them you're Jewish, because you are. You don't owe anyone an elaboration unless the rabbi or gabbaim ask, and that's honestly unlikely. No one else is halachicly allowed to ask you about your conversion anyway.

I strongly recommend converting within the community that fits your view of Judaism and needs best, and not worrying about other people validating your conversion. As someone who is more traditional spectrum and does view halacha as binding, I take very seriously the idea of accepting the mitzvot upon yourself as a binding matter. If that's not you, don't make promises you don't intend to keep based on what a handful of judgemental people might think. They really don't matter and they shouldn't get to make major life decisions like "what kind of Jew am I?" for you. The rest of us? Honestly we're just glad if you show up at 7 a.m. to be Jew #10.

[robertreich]

The One Thing That Would Make Elections Better For Everyone 

Are you sick of the onslaught of negative political ads that air on your TV every election season?

The fear-mongering. The half-truths.

Believe it or not, there’s a simple reform we can enact to make elections more bearable for voters.

It’s called ranked choice voting, or RCV, and it could change our politics for the better.

When you head to the ballot box under ranked choice voting, instead of voting for just one candidate, you have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so on.

So if you’re stuck between two preferred candidates for a position, you can spread your preferences out in hopes that one of them wins.

When ballots are counted, if none of the candidates gets an outright majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to their supporters’ second choice candidate.

This process continues until a candidate receives over 50% of the vote, and is declared the winner.

It’s also good for a whole host of other reasons.

Implementing RCV could have the added benefit of making our elections… well… nicer.

In a ranked choice voting system, candidates are less likely to engage in the kind of mudslinging we see every election season, because they’re not just trying to be a voter's first choice — they also want to be the second choice of voters who are backing their opponents.

This can motivate anyone running for office to be more inclusive and appeal to a broader range of voters — helping to connect people who don’t always agree on every issue.

RCV also allows us to exercise our right to vote without feeling like we’re compromising our beliefs or simply voting for the “lesser of two evils.” We can vote FOR the candidates we like the most, rather than voting AGAINST the candidates we like the least. RCV could also open the door to voters casting their ballots for more third-party candidates.

Even if your favorite candidate from your preferred party is not favored to win, that person could still be your first-choice — without you feeling like you are giving up your vote entirely. If your candidate doesn’t make it to the final round, your second or third choice could still end up winning in the final tally.  

Ranked choice voting can even change the kinds of people who run for office — for the better. Potential candidates wouldn’t have to avoid running for fear of splitting the vote or “spoiling” a close election — allowing for a potentially more diverse pool of candidates to run.

Look at Alaska, where voters used RCV to elect Mary Peltola to Congress — making her the first Alaskan Native and first woman to represent the state in the U.S. House.

Lastly, ranked choice voting saves everyone — you, me, elections officials — time and money.

There would no longer be runoffs, which can be costly and often have lower turnout — which means election results that are less likely to reflect the will of the public.

There’s a reason why RCV is starting to sweep the nation — it’s currently being used by 13 million voters across the country.

Ranked choice voting makes elections less painful, less expensive, and can help make our government more inclusive and responsive to what people actually want.

Maybe you can organize to make ranked choice voting a reality where you live.

#youtube #ranked choice voting #election #politics #video #videos

[waitmyturtles]

From The New York Times: [Thai] Lawmakers Block Prime Minister Candidate From New Vote, Drawing Protests

[July 19, 2023: Pasting here to bypass the NYT paywall. I thought this was an excellent overview of the recent history of Thai elections, and how the Senate confirmation process works. Again, remember: references to what’s happening politically will likely make it into the dramas we watch later this year and next. By Mike Ives and Muktita Suhartoto.] 

Protests erupted in Bangkok on Wednesday, hours after Thailand’s conservative establishment suspended a progressive leader and lawmakers denied him the chance to stand for a second parliamentary vote for prime minister.

The candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, leads a party that won the most votes in a May election after campaigning on an ambitious reform platform that challenged the country’s powerful conservative establishment. He lost an initial parliamentary vote for prime minister last week.

Late Wednesday, lawmakers voted to deny Mr. Pita, 42, the chance to stand for a second vote on the grounds that Parliament’s rules do not permit a “repeat motion.” Mr. Pita’s supporters see that as a not-so-subtle move to keep him out of power.

The mood in Bangkok, Thailand’s muggy capital, was anxious as protesters hit the streets on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Pita’s supporters have been expressing outrage online toward an establishment that often pushes back against Thailand’s democratic process.

“In my heart, I knew this would happen, so it didn’t come as a shock,” said Wichuda Rotphai, 41, one of hundreds of people who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to support Mr. Pita’s doomed bid for premier. “But I’m still disappointed, and I can’t accept it.”

Here’s what to know.

What does Pita Limjaroenrat stand for?

Mr. Pita’s party, Move Forward, has proposed ambitious policies for challenging Thailand’s powerful institutions like the military and the monarchy. The party won 151 seats in Parliament, the most of any party, and 10 more than Pheu Thai, the party founded by the exiled populist Thaksin Shinawatra, whose influence still towers over Thai politics.

Mr. Pita’s party has formed an eight-party coalition, which nominated him for prime minister last week. He came up short in the first vote because the Senate is controlled by military-appointed lawmakers who oppose his candidacy and the Move Forward platform.

I’m confused. Why are senators so tied to the military?

Becoming prime minister requires a simple majority of the 500-seat House of Representatives and the 250-seat Senate.

But the rules governing Senate appointments were drafted by the military junta that seized power from a democratically elected government in a 2014 coup. They effectively give senators veto power over prime ministerial candidates.

Last week, Mr. Pita won only 13 votes from the 249 senators who voted for prime minister. Mr. Pita acknowledged in an Instagram post on Wednesday afternoon that he was unlikely to become prime minister.

“It’s clear now that in the current system, winning the people’s trust isn’t enough to run the country,” he wrote.

Why was it such an uphill battle?

Mr. Pita had faced a slew of challenges even before Parliament denied him a chance to stand for a second vote.

The Constitutional Court said on Wednesday morning, for example, that it was suspending Mr. Pita from Parliament until a ruling is made in a case involving his shares of a media company. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Pita properly disclosed owning the shares before running for office, as required by Thai law.

The court’s ruling forced Mr. Pita to leave the chamber. It would not necessarily have prevented his coalition from nominating for a second time. But Parliament saw to that on its own.

Mr. Pita’s supporters have said the investigation is one of many ways that the establishment has been trying to unfairly derail his candidacy.

So who will be prime minister?

Before the drama on Wednesday, Mr. Pita had said if it became clear that he could not win, his party would allow its coalition partner, Pheu Thai, to nominate its own candidate.

Pheu Thai probably will do just that, but is also likely to form a brand-new coalition, one that is more palatable to conservative lawmakers who cannot stomach Mr. Pita and Move Forward.

Pheu Thai’s candidate would likely be Srettha Thavisin, 60, a property mogul with little political experience. If a new coalition materializes, he could be voted in as prime minister as early as this week.

Mr. Srettha would immediately present a sharp contrast to the current prime minister, former Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 military coup.

A more remote, but not impossible, scenario is that Pheu Thai allows a party from the conservative establishment to nominate a candidate as a condition for joining a new coalition. That candidate could be Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, 77, the deputy prime minister in the current government.

What would a Srettha victory represent?

Many would see it as a triumph for the democratic process in Thailand, a country with a long history of mass protests and military coups. Some foreign investors would also see a potential boost for a sluggish, coronavirus-battered economy.

But many of Move Forward’s progressive supporters would be angry about the establishment blocking their party from forming a government. On Wednesday evening, a demonstration reflecting that anger was taking shape at the city’s Democracy Monument.

The size of the protests over the next days or weeks will likely depend on who becomes prime minister. If it’s Mr. Srettha, demonstrations could be sporadic and modest. If it’s General Prawit or another military figure, they could be sustained and intense.

Ms. Wichuda, the protester, was one of hundreds who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, peering through its gates at police officers in riot gear. She said that while she did not agree with Mr. Pita’s contentious pledge to revise a law that criminalizes criticism of the monarchy, she still felt he had been “robbed” by politicians who were afraid to give a younger generation the chance to improve the country.

“If they can do such things to people with money and power,” she said, “what will be left for us, the common people, who have no position and no title?”

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