volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@jcclement@mastodon.social but it's not, and the system was specifically designed to make sure it wouldn't be so much greater with the president.

The president president has to answer to the Congress under checks and balances. His impact is restrained on purpose. Mitigated on purpose. If only we would appreciate that system.

@Silba What specifically are you saying that I wrote that's not factual?

I try to cite sources, but if there's something in particular you think is not factual let me know so I can cite.

@BohemianPeasant

@jcclement@mastodon.social I mean, I wish independent voters cared more about the conflicts of interests of all of the representatives that they keep reelecting.

This isn't a trump thing. It's a governance thing. And we are apparently all okay with this nonsense going on because we keep voting for Representatives that promote it.

@ERBeckman disagree: democracy is always on the edge just by the nature of that system, so citizens will always have to be wondering about the maintenance of their governance.

@tzimmer_history

@kagan That's a pretty ironic title considering that the entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was to to restore Congressional authority.

@timo21 only if that's authorized by Congress, which it shouldn't be, which goes right back to the democratic process.

So don't elect representatives who would authorize such a thing.

So often in the US system people forget how important it is to hold their representatives accountable for their role.

This isn't about the Supreme Court or the presidency. This is about the people that we elect to Congress.

@Nonilex

@maeve Well no, it's grounded in the concept of separation of powers.

Once you start intruding into the operation of the judicial branch the concept of independent judiciary is thrown aside. THAT is the corruption. After that wall is breached judges will have to be looking over their backs with every call they make worrying that they'll be punished by the other branches.

They won't be able to make calls respecting rights because of conflicts of interests.

In this case, sounds like the right-wing pundits are on the right side of political science.

@HamonWry It would only make things worse

@WideEyedCurious I mean it would be better if Congress simply voted on legislation clarifying it.

That's the job of our representatives.

It shouldn't be outsourced to a research group like this, and if the people we elect to Congress can't be bothered to address the issue then that itself says a lot.

@TammyGentzel Yes, that seems to be their official position.

@raploc@mastodon.social I imagine Putin is pretty happy with Harris being the nominee.

So let's not.

@NZedAUS If you tune into right-wing media, the response so far is exactly what they were predicting.

You say the media never anticipated it, but I was listening to the media, they absolutely did anticipate it.

@anonimno she's running a populist campaign, so no?

@bronakins they didn't, though. That's not what the ruling said.

@tomiahonen

@chessert Go read the ruling directly from the Supreme Court, because a whole bunch of these press outfits are putting out stories that flat out lie about what the Supreme Court actually said.

That's why the press has lost so much legitimacy lately, because those of us who actually read underlying documents realize that even outlets like CNN are just not telling the truth.

@PDFlynn

@Lyle Right, apparently the judge came out and made some statements that I would regard as incredibly inappropriate for a judge.

If you and I want to say that we would commonly call what the jury affirmed rape, that's one thing. But technicalities matter in law, so I've seen this going around and I don't think the judge should have spoken out in that direction.

It's more bar talk than judicial expertise

@knittingknots2 Well the other side of The ledger is that young families would end up paying for this.

@Lyle No that's incorrect. The jury refused to return a verdict saying that he was a rapist.

@BohemianPeasant Oh this is one of my favorite hobby horses.

People really don't understand what McConnell did because they don't understand how the Senate operates, so that let all of these politicians really pull the wool over people's eyes.

It was a win-win-win arrangement though, so they were really happy to promote it.

The rules of the Senate really emphasize equality, for the most part all of the senators are equal, even the leaders. The president of the Senate has special powers but never mind the sidetrack talking about how we misunderstand the role of the VP these days...

Any Senator could have walked to the podium to start the nomination process, and if the Senate wanted to do it then McConnell could not have stopped it. That's just how the equality rules in the Senate work.

But! As happened so often, Democrats were happy to blame McConnell as a campaign stunt, Republicans were happy to blame him to get out of votes they would rather not deal with, and McConnell himself got to present himself to his own constituents as super duper powerful because everyone else was saying so.

It was a win-win-win arrangement, even though it was terribly misleading of the American public.

To emphasize it, if the Senate wanted to confirm Garland then they would have outvoted McConnell and It would have gone through. The Senate functions largely on pantomime, they negotiate behind the scenes what they're going to say on the floor and script it, and what we see is just the script that they all agreed to.