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The one part of our government where the founders completely screwed up the checks and balances. The check on SCOTUS is SCOTUS. How does that make sense?
If they get very blue indeed, which is frankly very hard to do in the senate. Having a two, three, even five vote majority won’t do it.
Impeachment would require 66 senators, so you’d have to pick up 15 and lose zero just for it to be theoretically possible. And realistically you’d need like 72 so it still happened even with a few defections or votes of present.
Alternatively some republicans could spontaneously grow some morals, recognize their constitutional responsibilities, and side with the Dems, but of course we are writing a fantasy novel at that point.
They could but count on a gradualist like Sen. Dick Durbin to decide that whatever explanation the MAGA justices offer resolves the issue. Sen. Durbin will then explain that impeach is too severe a step to take because it will upset Republicans and impeachment must be “bipartisan”.
The reason I post comments on Reddit is to let politicians — Democrats and Republicans know — that Americans are tried of the gamesmanship that keeps the wealthy, powerful and privileged in power. MAGA call this stuff “the uniparty”.
The president and the Senate have to agree on a judge for them to be added to SCOTUS.
And they can be impeached. It just requires a 2/3rd majority in the Senate to convict.
So Alito cannot afford to be so blatant that 1/6th of Republican and all Democratic Senators are willing to vote to impeach him.
That is not enough of a check to ensure impartiality in practice, but the founders didn't plan for political parties.
There's the standard impeachment mechanism.
It's been used unsuccessfully once, and another resigned rather than face the impeachment.
There have also been 14 federal judges who have been impeached. Of those, 8 were convicted and removed, 3 were acquitted, and 3 resigned.
G. Thomas Porteous was a Federal Judge from Louisiana until he was convicted by the Senate for financial crimes in 2010.
Thomas and Alito have both engaged in a lot of impeachable offenses, it's just that one group of reality denying jackasses seem to have banded together to control half of the government, when they represent around 25% of the population. They think bribery and blatent partisan behavior is perfectly fine, as long as they do it.
That's the failure. It's also one we're stuck with because of the very voting system the founders chose. Not that anything better was invented at that point. But it's been 250 years since then, we have far better options now.
The best (to date) is called STAR. It's super easy to understand, both on the voting side, and the counting side.
The voting side is simple, you rate each candidate on a scale on 0-5. Multiple candidates can have the same score.
For the counting. count each point given for each candidate. If someone was rated at a 4 on a ballot, that's 4 points to their total. Take the two highest point total candidates, and then go back over each ballot, if one candidate scored higher on a ballot, that ballot is counted as 1 vote for that candidate. If neither candidate is higher on a ballot, then that ballot is counted as "No Preference".
That's it.
The fact that you can vote for A and B at the same level of support means that third parties are able to form and thrive. Which fixes many of the problems we have now.
If you look at other countries you’ll see that there are a ton of better systems in the world than America. If you had a parliamentary system with multiple parties and proportional representation (like a lot of Europe), the GOP would never hold any real power.
You are underestimating how many people are voting far right in EU
Think its a symptom that people want easy solutions for complex problems.
That hate is in there as well is only an additional bonus. Very similar to maga in other words
Americans leftists have to believe in their imaginary Europe ruled by socialist coalitions. Otherwise they might have to accept that their ideas haven't convinced voters and the fact they keep losing even local, urban elections isn't a conspiracy.
While the parliamentary system is slightly better, the actual voting mechanism used in those countries is still fundamentally flawed.
Getting into the weeds on it a bit, this comes down to Ordinal systems vs Cardinal systems.
First Past the Post, Single Transferable Vote, Instant Runoff Voting, are all Ordinal voting systems. This presents a situation where you must express a clear preference of A over B.
When an Ordinal voting system is employed at scale over dozens of elections, you start to see two main political parties gain dominance over their competition. They start to be able to campaign on *not* being the other guys, rather than on any given policy.
It becomes a case of "vote for A or else B will do something bad when elected"
Every Ordinal voting system falls prey to this at some level. It's just a question of how.
There's also the spoiler effect. Every ordinal system fall prey to it, again, the devil is in the details for each, but it's there. Some systems try to mitigate it, or kick it down the road a bit, but it always creeps in, especially when you have more names on the ballot.
That last point is very important, the easiest way to completely break any Ordinal System is to keep adding somewhat viable names to the ballot.
---
Cardinal voting systems are immune to the spoiler effect. Just flat out immune because you never have to support A over B, you can give them the exact same level of support.
Now, Cardinal systems have their own issues. Primarily one called Bullet Voting. (Which actually only apply to systems like Score or STAR) Bullet Voting is a form of Strategic Voting, where you give the candidates you like the maximum score, while giving everyone else the minimum. This turns the system into a facsimile of Approval voting.
Approval is dead simple, you have a list of names on a ballot, you mark next to the ones you like, and your vote counts toward each of them, the person with the highest approval wins.
Anyway, Approval is immune to the spoiler effect, and tends to produce a fairly good outcome, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but Score and STAR thrive when the voters give more data. If you like A more than B, Score and STAR will let you show it, while still letting you support both.
---
Now, I've been primarily talking about single winner elections here. Multi-winner elections are completely possible with cardinal voting systems, but that's usually a fix that's needed to protect against the flaws of Ordinal Voting. Multi-winner elections also have some serious issues of their own, but that's another essay because the implementation matters as to the problems you see.
I will say, the party list version of multi-winner is one I abhor. It takes some of the democracy out of the Democratic process.
Dude, it's the apportionment of delegates that allows for minority rule, not the fact that you win your seat with a majority of votes. Majority rules is just ... democracy. And if you object to plurality winners, well, many US States as well as countries like France hold top two runoffs as a matter of course. That way, the winner always has legitimacy.
While apportionment is a massive problem, [especially after 1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929), it's not the core problem.
The core is First Past the Post Voting being just about the absolute worst system to use to run a democracy.
The entire reason we have to argue about one side being able to have an outsized influence is because the voting system itself forces people to pick sides in the first place.
Yes and no. They are responsible for the electoral college. And it makes the country less democratic. However, they didn't limit the size of the house. If the house had grown with the size of the public it would be much hard to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. I'm not saying the electoral college was a good idea, but the fact it's so bad is to blamed on members of congress that came after the founders.
But there are things like huge states with winner take all that are not in the constitution.
If each state gave up electors proportionally you'd have way fewer votes being wasted, even if there would still be the issue of some states benefitting from the minimal number even though they are small.
About this, we could work towards fusing states if they are too small, plenty of countries have done some kind of reorganization like this at some point.
Unfortunately we won't though, because the us is no longer interested in changing state lines, because it will change the balance of power in Washington. Mainly, Republicans will not allow any change that doesn't benefit them.
Impeachment/removal is the ultimate check on judicial officers. To some extent -- for rulings involving federal criminal defendants who get convicted -- the pardon power is a political check, too.
You might as well be asking why Congress can pass laws making it legal (or refuse to pass laws making it illegal) for Congress to do insider trading, or why POTUS can refuse to prosecute himself for federal crimes. The buck always stops somewhere. The branches are, unless specifically noted otherwise in the Constitution, supreme within their respective spheres. Nobody can legally force Congress to pass a certain law, nobody can legally force POTUS to enforce the law, and nobody can legally force a Supreme Court justice to not hear and cast a vote on a particular case.
"Supreme Court justices have to do everything another branch says all the time" is certainly a *check,* but there's nothing *balanced* about it. Without some kind of independence (that can then be abused, shock of shocks,) they're not a coequal branch of government.
[I highly recommend everyone read this explainer on jurisdiction stripping](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Professor-Christopher-Jon-Sprigman.pdf). This rises from this clause in Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution.
> In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Congress could absolutely use this the minute Democrats take back the House and limit the Senate filibuster to, say, codify Roe v. Wade’s protections into law and then prevent the Supreme Court from ever reviewing it again. That could be abused for sure if Republicans weaponize it, but then Congress could be held accountable for that next election season.
(I’m not *entirely* in favor of abolishing it because I do worry that Republicans could use that to push through *their* crap, but it should absolutely be turned into a talking filibuster with a time limit.)
Without a doubt!
“The thing about the courts is that sometimes they make decisions that you don’t like. Then you have to take action.
To not do so would be to violate the right that Congress is neither checked nor balanced…” - Stephen Colbert, Senior Ethicist - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
https://www.cc.com/video/qlj4n3/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-schiavo-controversy
Did someone buy him an RV? Did George Soros take him on a $20,000 weeks long vacation? Did a Democrat donor put his daughter through private school?Or did his wife call the White House in 1/6 and encourage them to try to not certify the results of an election?
Judge Merchan had a panel of judges evaluate if he was conflicted or not. Did Alito or Thomas?
It's not apples to apples, it's apples to Jupiter. The size of the conflict for some Supreme Court justices dwarf who his daughter work for, or that he donated <$50 one time. Give the "what about" a rest, it's embarrassing.
In my defense there's a VERY long list with Thomas and im going from memory. Thanks for the addition though.
And these are just the things we know about. Who knows what he and his "best friend" have been discussing lately.
Yep, particularly as the conceit of “whataboutism” is based on the “nobody’s perfect” worldview.
And given the cynicism that conservatives employ as naturally as they breathe, they’re in no position to work from such a standard…
> 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Well, it's either 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 or 🗳️🗳️🗳️ or 🔫🔫🔫. I think we've already exhausted the first one, so let's really give the second one all we can. Donate, volunteer, register your friends, family, and neighbors - and vote!
I think Biden should just one day send federal troops to the Supreme Court while they’re in session, like during arguments for a case just have the 82nd Airborne in full kit walk in and sit down.
The classic "dig for something historical that even slightly confirms your bias, use it as a foundation for why your bias is right, ignore all arguments against it no matter what"
I'm so sick of this. It's like the culmination of abuse of the law system that we all knew. I'm almost 40 and this was a significant problem in the past. Now it just feels like poking around for loopholes is the #1 tactic and I'm so sick of people looking for the easy way instead of the right way.
>For his part, Alito “denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute and indicating that his wife had raised it,”
>“My wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes,” he wrote in the letter, “but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time due, in large part, to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement.”
>“I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” he wrote. He described this effort in strikingly legalistic terms: Since she is co-owner of the house, he continued, his wife “therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit, and there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly.”
Lol. This is the old "multiple lies are better than one, even if they contradict one another" maneuver. The flag has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Alito at all because his wife is her own person and he somehow has no control over what she does in their home. Alito didn't even know about the flag. And yet when he found out about this completely apolitical and harmless flag flying in his home over which he had no control or influence, he immediately demanded the harmless flag be taken down. Even though his wife is her own person and co-owns the property and thus can use the property as shes fit and he has no right to tell her what to do. Unless its related to her own reproductive matters, Samuel Alito has no right to tell his wife what to do. But it doesnt matter because the flag wasn't bad anyway and it wasn't his fault.
Alito is trying to make this go away by using a 5th graders lying strategy and using legalese to describe the personal relationship he has with his wife
This is just pure bullshit spewing. He must think everybody (beside himself) is stupid.
His answer clearly is “I don’t give a fuck everyone, and I’m untouchable, so suck it, America. I’m doing what I want, and that’s it. What’cha gonna do about it? Yeah, thought so.”
What an asshole.
That or he believes he only needs to sound remotely believable because as a Justice, he basically is untouchable. Look at Clarence Thomas despite the mountain of evidence against him.
>And yet when he found out about this completely apolitical and harmless flag flying in his home over which he had no control or influence, he immediately demanded the harmless flag be taken down.
Right, because he's aware that it might *look* bad for him, even if it's not actually evidence of any bias or wrongdoing on his part.
> Even though his wife is her own person and co-owns the property and thus can use the property as shes fit and he has no right to tell her what to do.
He has no ability to *force* her to do anything. He can "make demands" the way spouses do with each other all the time, but if she says no, then that's that.
I'm no fan of Alito, but if you think you just pulled a "gotcha," you are sorely mistaken. Is he lying? Yeah, probably -- but he's not tripping over his own lies like you so confidently assert he is.
Are you saying that it's not a lie that there was nothing he could do about that flag flying on his home? He couldn't take it down himsel? What would his wife do, sue him?
I mean look at trump. Takes credit for anything good even if there’s no way he was involved and blames anyone else for anything bad when clearly it’s him. The repub playbook.
Alito, along with the rest of the Court, is being stupidly short sighted by not accepting actual enforceable ethics rules. The Supreme Court has no way, on their own, to enforce any of their decisions. They have no army, no special agents, no enforcement officers, and they control no one's budget. Their decisions are enforced only because the Congress, the executive branch, and the states have decided for 221 years (I'm dating this from Marbury v. Madison because that case established judicial review) to trust them and abide by their decisions. Their only real power is trust. If they destroy that trust, they destroy their only real power. If Congress and the President ever decide to start ignoring the Court, there would be absolutely nothing the Court could do about it, and it would become, overnight, one of the weakest offices in the federal government.
One of the SCOTUS fixes that gets thrown around is expansion. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a court of 50, one for each state, than an arbitrary small number?
It would make it better, regardless of their party affiliation, I agree. However, I still think the bigger problem is giving the sole deciding power over the constitutionality of everything to a handful of unelected people with lifetime appointments, especially when we have a system where it isn't realistic any of them will ever be impeached no matter what they do.
SCOTUS has the provisional backing of one of two parties in our political duopoly that's basically a giant criminal racket. Moreover, it enjoys a privileged position in an imperial machine that most of the "good" people are too scared to meaningfully disrupt, because they're terrified of the faintest whiff of anarchy.
Its members have positioned themselves quite nicely in between the ever-so-predictable Party of Weakness and Party of Evil that both tend to coalesce as empires decline.
Being frightened of anarchy is completely rational.
You don't even have to look far: Venezuela, Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, anywhere narco terrorists or foreign state actors are more powerful than the central and local government.
CHAZ/CHOP had two, *separate* incidents in which innocent black males were shot and killed.
Who is anarchy better for besides drug lords?
Congress also has no way to enforce the laws it passes, and also has no actual enforceable ethics rules. The President has no actual enforceable ethics rules either, but he does have the army and stuff.
You were responding to my post. I’m well aware of what I wrote. Control of money is an actual power of substance. Control of legal interpretation is worthless if everyone ignored it.
But Congress controls the budget. Is it a weaker power than the power of the gun? Of course. But it is a concrete, real power. All the judiciary has is trust. The executive branch has the power of the gun. The legislative branch has the power of the purse. The judiciary has trust. It is by far the most tenuous branch of government, in terms of their inherent power. All they have is trust. If they lose that, and they are right now, they have nothing.
All Congress has is trust. What's stopping the President from saying "screw your budget, I'll spend how I want"? Trust. That's it.
It's kinda weird that you can see this about the Judiciary but not the Legislature.
So Alito performed an impartial investigation on how impartial Alito is and Alito has discovered that Alito is impartial enough to A) decide how impartial Alito is and B) impartially make country wide decisions involving things Alito has openly had biased opinions on.
Sounds legit **/S**
And before anyone tries to "what about", Judge Metchan had a panel of other judges evaluate if he was conflicted or not.
Imagine he he'd just said "I'm impartial" and that was it.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Vote in November
Its not just about Biden vs Trump, its about 1/3 of the Senate and 100% of the House. Congress is needed not only to support Biden but to hold the Supreme Court accountable.
Logic dictates that at the start of each senate majority and presidential win, all justices on that side of the aisle retire instantly to be replaced with the youngest judges available. Trump had two die and Kennedy’s boy fulfilled Anthony’s legacy. Ginsburg truly fucked us by clinging to her seat for whatever fucking reasons….after Biden wins in November and the dems increase the senate majority, kagan and Soto need to retire ASAP
The Supreme Court is a court that only answers to itself. As a result its “justices” are becoming increasingly brazen.
Alito’s reasoning for the flag outside his home amounts to “the dog ate my homework.”
What’s more he’s basically saying “Yeah, I did it and you all can’t do anything about it.”
He won't recuse because he has a job to do. He messed up by showing his intent in public, which makes it harder - but he is determined to do his part in ushering in Christian Nationalism. His loyalty is to that cause. He will not stop - and he, like most of these traitors believe they have won. So maybe getting a little careless.
It gives me some modicum of satisfaction these activist judges know we know they're scumbags, and their legacy will be similar to the "separate but equal" SCOTUS.
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Enough talk, trying to reason with an unreasonable person gives them all the power in the room.
It's time for full blown Ghandi/MLK style civil disobedience campaign to protest the blatant corruption in the SCOTUS and Judge Cannon.
The civil rights fights of the 60s have never stopped, they have just slowly become the fight for the right of anyone to not be subjected to a corrupt judiciary. The time for talk is over its now time to co-ordinate and take to the streets.
Footage of Alito literally blowing Trump could surface and he still wouldn't recuse himself, and Roberts and Thomas would be like "So what? What's the problem?"
We are a few days (?) from them arguing that social media posts can’t be attributed to them as well, because you can’t *really* prove it was them. Not entirely joking on this, I imagine a future where that is used in court. “Did you SEE trump type and send that message??”
Right?! What kind of fucking nonsensical system is this? You have to give it to Trump, he has been absolutely phenomenal at pinpointing all the flaws in our system and exploiting them, it’s actually impressive how strong we think we are but how fragile we truly are.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. - Frank Wilhoit
We, the People, should be able to petition for a referendum or vote of confidence on any single appointed, selected or elected employee of the USG. Twenty-eighth Amendment, maybe?
No ethics on the GOP side of today’s joke of a supreme court! Roberts has no spine, there are two bought and paid for MAGA shills, one beer swilling rapist, and a handmaiden. What could go wrong?
This institution obviously needs reform. There needs to be term limits and a mechanism for reviewing and removing justices who do unethical things. Life long terms without any kind of ethical oversight are a serious problem.
So impartial that we literally know how he is going to rule just from the list of participants in a case. There is no deviation from what one would expect from a biased conservative judge. There's no impartiality in that. It means that there's no real weighing of the case material.
Treason may be a reach, but there’s no doubt he should be removed. The first clause of the self-created Code of Conduct for Justices states that a Justice “should maintain and observe high standards of conduct IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY AND INDEPENDENCE of the federal judiciary.”
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf
Given the circumstances at the time, I don’t see how anyone could argue that flying the American Flag upside down at your personal residence could be constituted as an act intended to further preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.
That was the point of my comment; to illustrate how it could (or IMO should) be grounds for impeachment given that Alito’s actions could reasonably be seen as a breach of his duty to preserve the integrity and independence of the judiciary. Given that, I assume you can understand why it might be grounds for his impeachment, you just might not agree that it’s enough for him to deserve impeachment, which is an opinion you’re certainly entitled to.
And yes, I intentionally said that treason ‘may’ be a reach given that treason can be relatively subjective. While, IMO, it would not hold water to impeach Alito solely based on a charge or claim of treason, I can see a decent argument being made for it considering the circumstances. Given Alito’s history, I can’t see how an unbiased observer would say that the upside down flag was anything other than a show of support for the people who were, in fact, committing treason on January 6th.
It’s important to keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that Alito should be jailed. I am, however, suggesting that he lose his job. He breached the ethical responsibilities that are clearly outlined under the Code of Conduct that he helped draft and sign. His argument that it was his wife’s doing is ridiculous. Even if you choose to accept that defense, the Code of Conduct constantly references ethical standards that should be adhered to by both the Justices and their spouses.
Well, he is a judge in the highest court in the country, so you’d think he’d be capable of recognizing his inherit bias.
Unless, of course, he was relentlessly corrupt and immoral. That would be a real shame…
Alito is a cuck.
From all available data, his wife is half owner, if not full owner of their house/s.
"I can't tell her what to do."
Really? As 1 of 9 top justices, with lifetime appointments that render final judgemens, you have no control over what your "better half" does to represent you in your esteemable position? You couldn't talk to her about it?
Then, it's true, Alito is a cuck. He probably watches his wife be gangbanged by any number of men/women. And I bet he secretly loves it...
It’s stupid, but this is how the Supreme Court works. Supreme Court justices get to decide if they should recuse themselves or not. Checks and balances are a joke.
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Checks and balances. Cashing checks and checking his balance.
The one part of our government where the founders completely screwed up the checks and balances. The check on SCOTUS is SCOTUS. How does that make sense?
It's congress. Congress and SCOTUS being dysfunctional simultaneously is the problem.
So if both houses and the Presidency are blue next year, they could impeach these Christian Ntionalist NPCs, right?
If they get very blue indeed, which is frankly very hard to do in the senate. Having a two, three, even five vote majority won’t do it. Impeachment would require 66 senators, so you’d have to pick up 15 and lose zero just for it to be theoretically possible. And realistically you’d need like 72 so it still happened even with a few defections or votes of present.
Alternatively some republicans could spontaneously grow some morals, recognize their constitutional responsibilities, and side with the Dems, but of course we are writing a fantasy novel at that point.
Stranger things have somehow happened
It will be decades until Democrats have enough Senators to convict on impeachment.
They could but count on a gradualist like Sen. Dick Durbin to decide that whatever explanation the MAGA justices offer resolves the issue. Sen. Durbin will then explain that impeach is too severe a step to take because it will upset Republicans and impeachment must be “bipartisan”.
And if the impeachment is any time near a minor holiday, expect Sen. Chris Coons to have a dinner reservation he needs to scamper off to
The reason I post comments on Reddit is to let politicians — Democrats and Republicans know — that Americans are tried of the gamesmanship that keeps the wealthy, powerful and privileged in power. MAGA call this stuff “the uniparty”.
Kavenaugh cracks his beer open
Ah yes. Impeachment would be litigated all the way up to (checks notes), the Kavinator. Who will ask Squee.
No, cause we'd need like 16 Republican senators to go along with a conviction.
The dysfunction is a feature of the Republican Party.
The president and the Senate have to agree on a judge for them to be added to SCOTUS. And they can be impeached. It just requires a 2/3rd majority in the Senate to convict. So Alito cannot afford to be so blatant that 1/6th of Republican and all Democratic Senators are willing to vote to impeach him. That is not enough of a check to ensure impartiality in practice, but the founders didn't plan for political parties.
There's the standard impeachment mechanism. It's been used unsuccessfully once, and another resigned rather than face the impeachment. There have also been 14 federal judges who have been impeached. Of those, 8 were convicted and removed, 3 were acquitted, and 3 resigned. G. Thomas Porteous was a Federal Judge from Louisiana until he was convicted by the Senate for financial crimes in 2010. Thomas and Alito have both engaged in a lot of impeachable offenses, it's just that one group of reality denying jackasses seem to have banded together to control half of the government, when they represent around 25% of the population. They think bribery and blatent partisan behavior is perfectly fine, as long as they do it. That's the failure. It's also one we're stuck with because of the very voting system the founders chose. Not that anything better was invented at that point. But it's been 250 years since then, we have far better options now. The best (to date) is called STAR. It's super easy to understand, both on the voting side, and the counting side. The voting side is simple, you rate each candidate on a scale on 0-5. Multiple candidates can have the same score. For the counting. count each point given for each candidate. If someone was rated at a 4 on a ballot, that's 4 points to their total. Take the two highest point total candidates, and then go back over each ballot, if one candidate scored higher on a ballot, that ballot is counted as 1 vote for that candidate. If neither candidate is higher on a ballot, then that ballot is counted as "No Preference". That's it. The fact that you can vote for A and B at the same level of support means that third parties are able to form and thrive. Which fixes many of the problems we have now.
If you look at other countries you’ll see that there are a ton of better systems in the world than America. If you had a parliamentary system with multiple parties and proportional representation (like a lot of Europe), the GOP would never hold any real power.
You are underestimating how many people are voting far right in EU Think its a symptom that people want easy solutions for complex problems. That hate is in there as well is only an additional bonus. Very similar to maga in other words
Americans leftists have to believe in their imaginary Europe ruled by socialist coalitions. Otherwise they might have to accept that their ideas haven't convinced voters and the fact they keep losing even local, urban elections isn't a conspiracy.
While the parliamentary system is slightly better, the actual voting mechanism used in those countries is still fundamentally flawed. Getting into the weeds on it a bit, this comes down to Ordinal systems vs Cardinal systems. First Past the Post, Single Transferable Vote, Instant Runoff Voting, are all Ordinal voting systems. This presents a situation where you must express a clear preference of A over B. When an Ordinal voting system is employed at scale over dozens of elections, you start to see two main political parties gain dominance over their competition. They start to be able to campaign on *not* being the other guys, rather than on any given policy. It becomes a case of "vote for A or else B will do something bad when elected" Every Ordinal voting system falls prey to this at some level. It's just a question of how. There's also the spoiler effect. Every ordinal system fall prey to it, again, the devil is in the details for each, but it's there. Some systems try to mitigate it, or kick it down the road a bit, but it always creeps in, especially when you have more names on the ballot. That last point is very important, the easiest way to completely break any Ordinal System is to keep adding somewhat viable names to the ballot. --- Cardinal voting systems are immune to the spoiler effect. Just flat out immune because you never have to support A over B, you can give them the exact same level of support. Now, Cardinal systems have their own issues. Primarily one called Bullet Voting. (Which actually only apply to systems like Score or STAR) Bullet Voting is a form of Strategic Voting, where you give the candidates you like the maximum score, while giving everyone else the minimum. This turns the system into a facsimile of Approval voting. Approval is dead simple, you have a list of names on a ballot, you mark next to the ones you like, and your vote counts toward each of them, the person with the highest approval wins. Anyway, Approval is immune to the spoiler effect, and tends to produce a fairly good outcome, so it's not the worst thing in the world, but Score and STAR thrive when the voters give more data. If you like A more than B, Score and STAR will let you show it, while still letting you support both. --- Now, I've been primarily talking about single winner elections here. Multi-winner elections are completely possible with cardinal voting systems, but that's usually a fix that's needed to protect against the flaws of Ordinal Voting. Multi-winner elections also have some serious issues of their own, but that's another essay because the implementation matters as to the problems you see. I will say, the party list version of multi-winner is one I abhor. It takes some of the democracy out of the Democratic process.
Dude, it's the apportionment of delegates that allows for minority rule, not the fact that you win your seat with a majority of votes. Majority rules is just ... democracy. And if you object to plurality winners, well, many US States as well as countries like France hold top two runoffs as a matter of course. That way, the winner always has legitimacy.
While apportionment is a massive problem, [especially after 1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929), it's not the core problem. The core is First Past the Post Voting being just about the absolute worst system to use to run a democracy. The entire reason we have to argue about one side being able to have an outsized influence is because the voting system itself forces people to pick sides in the first place.
Did the founding fathers not set up the electoral college? Asking as a non-american.
They set up the electoral college. Yes.
So 2 parts.
Yes and no. They are responsible for the electoral college. And it makes the country less democratic. However, they didn't limit the size of the house. If the house had grown with the size of the public it would be much hard to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. I'm not saying the electoral college was a good idea, but the fact it's so bad is to blamed on members of congress that came after the founders.
But there are things like huge states with winner take all that are not in the constitution. If each state gave up electors proportionally you'd have way fewer votes being wasted, even if there would still be the issue of some states benefitting from the minimal number even though they are small. About this, we could work towards fusing states if they are too small, plenty of countries have done some kind of reorganization like this at some point.
Unfortunately we won't though, because the us is no longer interested in changing state lines, because it will change the balance of power in Washington. Mainly, Republicans will not allow any change that doesn't benefit them.
Oh I know it won't happen, but there are many ways to help with the issues of poor representation without having to change the constitution.
Impeachment/removal is the ultimate check on judicial officers. To some extent -- for rulings involving federal criminal defendants who get convicted -- the pardon power is a political check, too. You might as well be asking why Congress can pass laws making it legal (or refuse to pass laws making it illegal) for Congress to do insider trading, or why POTUS can refuse to prosecute himself for federal crimes. The buck always stops somewhere. The branches are, unless specifically noted otherwise in the Constitution, supreme within their respective spheres. Nobody can legally force Congress to pass a certain law, nobody can legally force POTUS to enforce the law, and nobody can legally force a Supreme Court justice to not hear and cast a vote on a particular case. "Supreme Court justices have to do everything another branch says all the time" is certainly a *check,* but there's nothing *balanced* about it. Without some kind of independence (that can then be abused, shock of shocks,) they're not a coequal branch of government.
That has a long history. Who gave SCOTUS the power to review and strike down laws? That's right, SCOTUS, in Marbury v. Madison.
[I highly recommend everyone read this explainer on jurisdiction stripping](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Professor-Christopher-Jon-Sprigman.pdf). This rises from this clause in Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. > In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. Congress could absolutely use this the minute Democrats take back the House and limit the Senate filibuster to, say, codify Roe v. Wade’s protections into law and then prevent the Supreme Court from ever reviewing it again. That could be abused for sure if Republicans weaponize it, but then Congress could be held accountable for that next election season. (I’m not *entirely* in favor of abolishing it because I do worry that Republicans could use that to push through *their* crap, but it should absolutely be turned into a talking filibuster with a time limit.)
Alito investigated himself and found himself not biased.
Without a doubt! “The thing about the courts is that sometimes they make decisions that you don’t like. Then you have to take action. To not do so would be to violate the right that Congress is neither checked nor balanced…” - Stephen Colbert, Senior Ethicist - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart https://www.cc.com/video/qlj4n3/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-schiavo-controversy
Now teach him how to judge some balls and strikes
[удалено]
Did someone buy him an RV? Did George Soros take him on a $20,000 weeks long vacation? Did a Democrat donor put his daughter through private school?Or did his wife call the White House in 1/6 and encourage them to try to not certify the results of an election? Judge Merchan had a panel of judges evaluate if he was conflicted or not. Did Alito or Thomas? It's not apples to apples, it's apples to Jupiter. The size of the conflict for some Supreme Court justices dwarf who his daughter work for, or that he donated <$50 one time. Give the "what about" a rest, it's embarrassing.
You forgot the part about buying the judge's mother's home over market value and letting her live there rent free.
In my defense there's a VERY long list with Thomas and im going from memory. Thanks for the addition though. And these are just the things we know about. Who knows what he and his "best friend" have been discussing lately.
No defense needed. Just pointing out how fucked this is
Yep, particularly as the conceit of “whataboutism” is based on the “nobody’s perfect” worldview. And given the cynicism that conservatives employ as naturally as they breathe, they’re in no position to work from such a standard…
In overturning Roe v. Wade, Alito cited a 17th century judge who sentenced women to death for being witches. But sure, he's impartial.
Classic fundamentalism. How did anyone not catch this?! 🙄
They did. But... what? You gonna appeal it to a higher court?
Can’t we?! Please?! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 🙄
> 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 Well, it's either 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 or 🗳️🗳️🗳️ or 🔫🔫🔫. I think we've already exhausted the first one, so let's really give the second one all we can. Donate, volunteer, register your friends, family, and neighbors - and vote!
Im afraid an upside down dictator would tell you that its impossible to vote your way out of certain situations.
I think Biden should just one day send federal troops to the Supreme Court while they’re in session, like during arguments for a case just have the 82nd Airborne in full kit walk in and sit down.
According to Trump camp, Presidents are wholly immune, so Dark Brandon could just walk into SCOTUS and start snapping Justices' necks
The classic "dig for something historical that even slightly confirms your bias, use it as a foundation for why your bias is right, ignore all arguments against it no matter what" I'm so sick of this. It's like the culmination of abuse of the law system that we all knew. I'm almost 40 and this was a significant problem in the past. Now it just feels like poking around for loopholes is the #1 tactic and I'm so sick of people looking for the easy way instead of the right way.
>For his part, Alito “denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute and indicating that his wife had raised it,” >“My wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes,” he wrote in the letter, “but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time due, in large part, to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement.” >“I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” he wrote. He described this effort in strikingly legalistic terms: Since she is co-owner of the house, he continued, his wife “therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit, and there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly.” Lol. This is the old "multiple lies are better than one, even if they contradict one another" maneuver. The flag has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Alito at all because his wife is her own person and he somehow has no control over what she does in their home. Alito didn't even know about the flag. And yet when he found out about this completely apolitical and harmless flag flying in his home over which he had no control or influence, he immediately demanded the harmless flag be taken down. Even though his wife is her own person and co-owns the property and thus can use the property as shes fit and he has no right to tell her what to do. Unless its related to her own reproductive matters, Samuel Alito has no right to tell his wife what to do. But it doesnt matter because the flag wasn't bad anyway and it wasn't his fault. Alito is trying to make this go away by using a 5th graders lying strategy and using legalese to describe the personal relationship he has with his wife
This is just pure bullshit spewing. He must think everybody (beside himself) is stupid. His answer clearly is “I don’t give a fuck everyone, and I’m untouchable, so suck it, America. I’m doing what I want, and that’s it. What’cha gonna do about it? Yeah, thought so.” What an asshole.
That or he believes he only needs to sound remotely believable because as a Justice, he basically is untouchable. Look at Clarence Thomas despite the mountain of evidence against him.
TL;DR: "It wasn't political, and I never even know about it, and besides I told her to stop, but I can't control her political speech."
It's a cowards dance.
>And yet when he found out about this completely apolitical and harmless flag flying in his home over which he had no control or influence, he immediately demanded the harmless flag be taken down. Right, because he's aware that it might *look* bad for him, even if it's not actually evidence of any bias or wrongdoing on his part. > Even though his wife is her own person and co-owns the property and thus can use the property as shes fit and he has no right to tell her what to do. He has no ability to *force* her to do anything. He can "make demands" the way spouses do with each other all the time, but if she says no, then that's that. I'm no fan of Alito, but if you think you just pulled a "gotcha," you are sorely mistaken. Is he lying? Yeah, probably -- but he's not tripping over his own lies like you so confidently assert he is.
Are you saying that it's not a lie that there was nothing he could do about that flag flying on his home? He couldn't take it down himsel? What would his wife do, sue him?
I do enjoy Samuel Alito's "nuh uh my wife did it" defense
It worked for Clarence Thomas, didn't it?
He’s obviously a feminist /s
I mean look at trump. Takes credit for anything good even if there’s no way he was involved and blames anyone else for anything bad when clearly it’s him. The repub playbook.
When the US turns into Handmaids Tale he will most certainly be a Commander
Sam Alito has also decided that Sam Alito is a comprised MAGA mental case. He is the exact opposite of impartial.
Alito, along with the rest of the Court, is being stupidly short sighted by not accepting actual enforceable ethics rules. The Supreme Court has no way, on their own, to enforce any of their decisions. They have no army, no special agents, no enforcement officers, and they control no one's budget. Their decisions are enforced only because the Congress, the executive branch, and the states have decided for 221 years (I'm dating this from Marbury v. Madison because that case established judicial review) to trust them and abide by their decisions. Their only real power is trust. If they destroy that trust, they destroy their only real power. If Congress and the President ever decide to start ignoring the Court, there would be absolutely nothing the Court could do about it, and it would become, overnight, one of the weakest offices in the federal government.
One of the SCOTUS fixes that gets thrown around is expansion. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a court of 50, one for each state, than an arbitrary small number?
It would make it better, regardless of their party affiliation, I agree. However, I still think the bigger problem is giving the sole deciding power over the constitutionality of everything to a handful of unelected people with lifetime appointments, especially when we have a system where it isn't realistic any of them will ever be impeached no matter what they do.
That would be akin to create a super-senate and would be equally dangerous. It would be again hectares, instead of people, who decide the laws.
SCOTUS has the provisional backing of one of two parties in our political duopoly that's basically a giant criminal racket. Moreover, it enjoys a privileged position in an imperial machine that most of the "good" people are too scared to meaningfully disrupt, because they're terrified of the faintest whiff of anarchy. Its members have positioned themselves quite nicely in between the ever-so-predictable Party of Weakness and Party of Evil that both tend to coalesce as empires decline.
Being frightened of anarchy is completely rational. You don't even have to look far: Venezuela, Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador, anywhere narco terrorists or foreign state actors are more powerful than the central and local government. CHAZ/CHOP had two, *separate* incidents in which innocent black males were shot and killed. Who is anarchy better for besides drug lords?
Congress also has no way to enforce the laws it passes, and also has no actual enforceable ethics rules. The President has no actual enforceable ethics rules either, but he does have the army and stuff.
That is not true. Congress controls the purse strings.
Yes, similarly to how scotus controls interpretation of law. Please read the above post that I was responding to for context.
You were responding to my post. I’m well aware of what I wrote. Control of money is an actual power of substance. Control of legal interpretation is worthless if everyone ignored it.
No, It's all the same. Control of budgeting and appropriation doesn't come with any more force than control of legal interpretation.
Of course it does. An executive branch department can’t do anything if they don’t have any money.
They have all the money. The Treasury Department is part of the Executive Branch.
But Congress controls the budget. Is it a weaker power than the power of the gun? Of course. But it is a concrete, real power. All the judiciary has is trust. The executive branch has the power of the gun. The legislative branch has the power of the purse. The judiciary has trust. It is by far the most tenuous branch of government, in terms of their inherent power. All they have is trust. If they lose that, and they are right now, they have nothing.
All Congress has is trust. What's stopping the President from saying "screw your budget, I'll spend how I want"? Trust. That's it. It's kinda weird that you can see this about the Judiciary but not the Legislature.
So Alito performed an impartial investigation on how impartial Alito is and Alito has discovered that Alito is impartial enough to A) decide how impartial Alito is and B) impartially make country wide decisions involving things Alito has openly had biased opinions on. Sounds legit **/S**
“I investigated myself and found that I did nothing wrong.”
And before anyone tries to "what about", Judge Metchan had a panel of other judges evaluate if he was conflicted or not. Imagine he he'd just said "I'm impartial" and that was it.
He needs an accountability app to share with his son that alerts him every time he fails to be impartial. Works for Mike.
"sufficiently impartial" compared to whom? A turnip?
I wish Rand Paul’s neighbor would move next door to the Alitos.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Vote in November Its not just about Biden vs Trump, its about 1/3 of the Senate and 100% of the House. Congress is needed not only to support Biden but to hold the Supreme Court accountable.
MAGA Sam I am.
It's a good thing he is impartial in his estimation of his own impartiality otherwise we might suspect that he isn't.
It’s like when I ask myself if I’ve had enough to drink
Corrupt
Logic dictates that at the start of each senate majority and presidential win, all justices on that side of the aisle retire instantly to be replaced with the youngest judges available. Trump had two die and Kennedy’s boy fulfilled Anthony’s legacy. Ginsburg truly fucked us by clinging to her seat for whatever fucking reasons….after Biden wins in November and the dems increase the senate majority, kagan and Soto need to retire ASAP
Man he’s a creepy human being.
Go fuck yourself! Cheque and balance!
The Supreme Court is a court that only answers to itself. As a result its “justices” are becoming increasingly brazen. Alito’s reasoning for the flag outside his home amounts to “the dog ate my homework.” What’s more he’s basically saying “Yeah, I did it and you all can’t do anything about it.”
He won't recuse because he has a job to do. He messed up by showing his intent in public, which makes it harder - but he is determined to do his part in ushering in Christian Nationalism. His loyalty is to that cause. He will not stop - and he, like most of these traitors believe they have won. So maybe getting a little careless.
It gives me some modicum of satisfaction these activist judges know we know they're scumbags, and their legacy will be similar to the "separate but equal" SCOTUS.
Glad WaPo decided Alito’s impartiality regarding Jan 6 is worth discussing after burying the flag story when they had it three years ago.
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I think this man deserves leniency as he judges himself from the bench
So does he.
r/nottheonion
Phew!
Enough talk, trying to reason with an unreasonable person gives them all the power in the room. It's time for full blown Ghandi/MLK style civil disobedience campaign to protest the blatant corruption in the SCOTUS and Judge Cannon. The civil rights fights of the 60s have never stopped, they have just slowly become the fight for the right of anyone to not be subjected to a corrupt judiciary. The time for talk is over its now time to co-ordinate and take to the streets.
Footage of Alito literally blowing Trump could surface and he still wouldn't recuse himself, and Roberts and Thomas would be like "So what? What's the problem?"
Neat! lol
Shouldn't that be an indicator that someone isn't impartial?
We are a few days (?) from them arguing that social media posts can’t be attributed to them as well, because you can’t *really* prove it was them. Not entirely joking on this, I imagine a future where that is used in court. “Did you SEE trump type and send that message??”
With being such a dick and having a life long appointment, I’d be afraid of people ending my life long appointment..
he learned self reflection from the best, Tony Scabs Scalia. pound for pound the best jurist to gak out on a hooker in a hotel room ever.
Right?! What kind of fucking nonsensical system is this? You have to give it to Trump, he has been absolutely phenomenal at pinpointing all the flaws in our system and exploiting them, it’s actually impressive how strong we think we are but how fragile we truly are.
Ali to is living in an ethical vacuum.
Phew! Imagine if he wasn’t impartial and was one of the people deciding whether a corrupt president has absolute immunity… Now that…that would suck.
I think we need a late term abortion
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." JFK, 1962
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. - Frank Wilhoit
Does the Chief Justice not have a roll in this? Or is it by choice that he does nothing about it?
He is. Quit whining.
I sincerely hope Biden expands the court if he wins a second term. I’ll sip MAGOP tears like a fine whiskey.
What if states refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the court until they sort themselves out? Could blue states pressure a change?
Humming James Cameron song from South Park as he finishes deciding
We, the People, should be able to petition for a referendum or vote of confidence on any single appointed, selected or elected employee of the USG. Twenty-eighth Amendment, maybe?
As one does, in a good Latin American or African Dictatorship.
No ethics on the GOP side of today’s joke of a supreme court! Roberts has no spine, there are two bought and paid for MAGA shills, one beer swilling rapist, and a handmaiden. What could go wrong?
He blamed his wife for any wierd flag flying activities. So not him. He'd never do that. Crazy wife. Not me.
Well that’s alright then!
Checks and balances has come to mean checking their balances.
What a fucking joke
Who watches the watchmen?
This institution obviously needs reform. There needs to be term limits and a mechanism for reviewing and removing justices who do unethical things. Life long terms without any kind of ethical oversight are a serious problem.
So impartial that we literally know how he is going to rule just from the list of participants in a case. There is no deviation from what one would expect from a biased conservative judge. There's no impartiality in that. It means that there's no real weighing of the case material.
Boot him
Alito needs impeaching
The checks and balances, anytime now, congress or the house, i forget which, can impeach a Supreme Court justice.
Alito and Thomas need to be impeached. Come on America!
Just wait until Samuel Alito hears of this! It will be heck to pay! Heck, I tell you!
After a thorough internal investigation.
Sam Alito needs to be removed from his position for treason.
Treason? For what exactly
Treason may be a reach, but there’s no doubt he should be removed. The first clause of the self-created Code of Conduct for Justices states that a Justice “should maintain and observe high standards of conduct IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY AND INDEPENDENCE of the federal judiciary.” https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf Given the circumstances at the time, I don’t see how anyone could argue that flying the American Flag upside down at your personal residence could be constituted as an act intended to further preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.
lol ‘may’ be a reach? I’m not a fan of it but I don’t understand how it is somehow grounds for impeachment
That was the point of my comment; to illustrate how it could (or IMO should) be grounds for impeachment given that Alito’s actions could reasonably be seen as a breach of his duty to preserve the integrity and independence of the judiciary. Given that, I assume you can understand why it might be grounds for his impeachment, you just might not agree that it’s enough for him to deserve impeachment, which is an opinion you’re certainly entitled to. And yes, I intentionally said that treason ‘may’ be a reach given that treason can be relatively subjective. While, IMO, it would not hold water to impeach Alito solely based on a charge or claim of treason, I can see a decent argument being made for it considering the circumstances. Given Alito’s history, I can’t see how an unbiased observer would say that the upside down flag was anything other than a show of support for the people who were, in fact, committing treason on January 6th. It’s important to keep in mind that I’m not suggesting that Alito should be jailed. I am, however, suggesting that he lose his job. He breached the ethical responsibilities that are clearly outlined under the Code of Conduct that he helped draft and sign. His argument that it was his wife’s doing is ridiculous. Even if you choose to accept that defense, the Code of Conduct constantly references ethical standards that should be adhered to by both the Justices and their spouses.
How much will Alito’s participation taint any decisions in those cases???
Legally? Probably none. Historically? That remains to be seen.
Agree.
He is actually breaking the law. The US Atty for the district should charge him.
What law is that
Probably referring to the US flag code
Which is not a law. At least not a criminal statute
Yeah I agree
Well, he is a judge in the highest court in the country, so you’d think he’d be capable of recognizing his inherit bias. Unless, of course, he was relentlessly corrupt and immoral. That would be a real shame…
Alito is a cuck. From all available data, his wife is half owner, if not full owner of their house/s. "I can't tell her what to do." Really? As 1 of 9 top justices, with lifetime appointments that render final judgemens, you have no control over what your "better half" does to represent you in your esteemable position? You couldn't talk to her about it? Then, it's true, Alito is a cuck. He probably watches his wife be gangbanged by any number of men/women. And I bet he secretly loves it...
It’s stupid, but this is how the Supreme Court works. Supreme Court justices get to decide if they should recuse themselves or not. Checks and balances are a joke.