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The Supreme Court strikes down Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan, blocking debt relief for millions of borrowers
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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It's a great lesson in how important elections are. Trump was able to appoint multiple supreme court justices which have shaped the future of America for years due to their most recent decisions and will continue to shape it for decades after he is gone.
yeah, i'm glad that there wasn't anything that could of been done under Obama...oh wait (yes it was a multi factor fuck up, but all the fuck ups were from people who were supposed to be "on our side" trying to claim power just a little longer and fucking miss me with the hand waving of there was nothing that could be done! there was!) Voting is important yes but can we stop pretending it's a fucking magic bullet? Cause it's not. Its one tiny itty bitty thing that needs to be done. Hell voting doesn't even work if you don't have any of the other stuff surrounding it. People need to get organized both at home and at work and get ready to take the fight to them through unions and strikes at the very least.
i'm so fucking sick of the answer to all of this is "go vote" when there is much more than just that needing to be done. Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
Yeah, Democrats lost a Supreme Court seat because one old lady refused to retire and they lost out on months of judicial confirmations this year because a different old lady refused to retire.
(if the Republicans take the Senate in 2024 I hope it's by a narrow enough margin that they have to worry about 90-year-old Chuck Grassley the same way we've had to worry about Feinstein)
It was a 6-3 decision, one seat wasn't going to make a difference in this decision.
Don’t forget about the other seat that the Rs blocked Obama from filling. The SC could have been a 5-4 dem majority.
That whole situation still makes me so mad. That turtle bastard refused to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland for 9 months because it was an election year, and then four years later held hearings voted on and seated Barrett after the election had started.
We should absolutely have a liberal 5-4 majority. Instead we live in a conservative 6-3 dystopia, with Republicans openly planning on denying any results they disagree with and installing whatever fucking president they want.
Surprise Rs have no principles.
Still can, we just have to avoid giving Republicans a window of Senate + WH control in which to replace Alito or Thomas. (and even if we only get one of them we get another crack at it a few years later with Roberts)
Ok, so we just have to hold out for another 30 years or so.
Thomas is 75, fat, and I assume he's not doing daily yoga, abstaining from alcohol, and following a strict vegan diet on all of these rich-guy junkets he goes on. Alito is 73 and likewise. Pure evil can get you an awfully long way - c.f. Henry Kissinger - but even so, the odds of either of them lasting much more than another decade are pretty slim.
How do you know?
For all we know that one person could have convinced another to vote in favour of debt relief. Or perhaps when it became clear the vote was standing 5-4 it would make one of those five decide it's not clear enough and switch their vote because there wasn't a strong enough majority to block the executive branch.
Or perhaps if it was blocked at 5-4 it would give more options for result to be challenged or appealed.
Lots of things might be different if politicians who say they are for the people actually act in the best interests of the people, even if that means they retire.
For all we know it could have spurred the conservatives to work even harder to screw over the country.
Basing your entire ideology on "what could have been" is a fools errand. Its time to start looking at the future, instead of lamenting the past.
Unless you find more fulfillment in bitching about how its everyone else's fault your life is shit.
I don't know why you're taking that tone with me, I didn't bitch or lament about anything nor make any statements about my "ideology".
All I did was point out "one seat wasn't going to make a difference" is faulty logic.
Let's not pretend that he conservative justices didn't already know how they were going to rule on this. They just needed to do a little parallel construction before issuing their opinion.
yes but there were two stolen seats.
Re: Feinstein, my understanding of why they've kept he is that, with her, the Dems have a one-seat majority on the Judicial Committee. The moment she resigns, it's an even split. Customarily, the Senate would promptly appoint a replacement and all would be well. However, that vote would be subject to the filibuster, and the Dems don't trust McConnell to not block it. If McConnell does block a replacement, then the Judicial Committee stays split and appointing any judges becomes completely impossible.
They'd rather deal with Feinstein's limited availability rather than take the gamble that they'd be allowed to fill a replacement. I agree that she should absolutely retire, but there are political games that have to be considered when the stakes are this high.
Because Republicans would rather break the system than allow it to work as intended. Because they know that's the only way they can ever have an advantage.
Exactly. And then they can point at the system they destroyed and say look, government doesn't work! Vote for me so I can get rid of it!
It's a vicious cycle, and it's 100% on purpose.
You know how everyone knows you're supposed to brush your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes, AND FLOSS? If we all did that on the regular, dentist appointments would be quick and painless the vast majority of the time.
Instead, we've got people who barely brush, never floss, avoid the dentist and then hate the dentist for giving them pain and grief when they finally get around to it.
Voting is like that. No one would have to harp on everyone to go vote if everyone did it, and frankly if everyone voted according to their own actual interests and benefits, we wouldn't be IN this mess to begin with.
It's not that it's a magic bullet, and I don't think anyone is pretending it is. It's that not enough people ARE voting, and it's the single best way we have to make a large step in the right direction.
If we all voted blue every election, without fail, eventually we start to see the impact of avoiding the GOP regressions. Eventually we gain momentum.
Vote AND organize. But if you can't even be arsed to vote, what makes you think you'll be willing to do the vastly more intensive actions involved in an active fight?
Do the bare minimum ffs. If you (global you) don't vote, miss me with the bullshit angst and wimpy call to actions no one will take. It's just as much a hand waving whether it's a fist, a middle finger, or a dismissal if it's not engaged otherwise. We need to use ALL the tools we have against oppression.
Voting is the BARE MINIMUM required of a citizen living in a democratic society. You use all tools available to ensure a difficult job is done efficiently and effectively.
At scale, thinking that any problem cannot be solved via a single-facet solution is so myopic that I can barely contain my anger when I encounter it.
Couple that with a lack of understanding that nothing is instant, and everything requires participation in a democracy - and it becomes nearly impossible.
And it's could HAVE.
It's especially galling being repeatedly told to vote when the dems refuse to actually fucking fight. They made nowhere near the amount of effort to block Trump appointees that republicans made to stop Obama appointees and no amount of "high road" moral victories will outweigh the effect of having a far right leaning supreme court for a generation
And do what exactly? Hold a sign on a sidewalk and yell? It all revolves around voting. If your actions don't end up changing votes, then it's literally pointless.
"Getting organized with your community" could mean things like volunteering to help register voters, giving people rides to polling sites, resisting voter suppression, etc. It could also mean things like setting up group panel discussions to help regular people articulate their needs to elected representatives, or organizing fundraisers for political candidates.
In my opinion these types of activist work have potential to be more helpful than just encouraging to people to vote in an abstract sense.
You can even sometimes organize groups of people to solve problems directly on their own. In a town I used to live in, people got sick of waiting on the government to provide better clinics, so they started a free clinic with donated money and labor. Later, they were easily able to secure government grants once it was operating. No voting, signs, or yelling required (I believe they did have a few benefit concerts). It was a win for the community, who got a free clinic, and a win for the local government, who got a longstanding problem off their plate with essentially no effort on their part, just a little ongoing funding.
Doing the work of calling people up & coordinating getting them to come to events (like, say, polling sites, or city council meetings, or benefit concerts) is basically 90% of what "political organizing" is.
i agree with you, but that paragraph is blocky
It's a great reminder why first-past-the-post needs to go. Who's going to step up for the Dems this year? Are we really counting on an anemic Biden to carry the party against an energized right? Or will someone step up to the plate only to be reprimanded as a "spoiler"?
We need actual competition in the political space. If incumbent cronyism could be effectively challenged we'd have politicians who care a bit more about representing and a bit less about political capital.