A post that indicates that the “wage- price spiral”, being used by politicians to not give decent pay rises, is a fallacy. https://bywire.news/articles/wage-p...fxgVO6jGEY-POS2XwBWXCN46d2RCYQbP6mY&fs=e&s=cl
Roe v Wade is officially dead in the United States. Abortion is criminalized in almost two dozen states as of today. And in his concurrence, Clarence Thomas said that it's time to take aim at other substantive due process rights created by the Supreme Court: namely, the right to contraception, gay marriage, and the decriminalization of sodomy. What a broken country.
And guns. SCOTUS ruled today that it simply cannot overrule the states on whether women have rights. Yesterday, it overruled the states on whether people can concealed carry guns. The right to carry weaponry is unlimited. It is the only true right that the Supreme Court recognizes.
****ing bonkers state of affairs. I know a number of Americans living in the Netherlands horrified at what's happening. Mustn't judge all by actions and deeds of, I was going to say a powerful minority but don't know if that's the reality.
That's very much the case, particularly with SCOTUS. There are six conservatives on the court, out of nine seats; Republican presidential candidates have won the popular vote in exactly one of the past eight elections, yet they have been able to stack the courts. And that doesn't even touch on their continuing efforts to undermine the basic concept of democracy, which will only accelerate from here.
The UK government has been attacking the judiciary since Johnson's attempt at poroguing parliament was thwarted with a marked decrease in successful applications. I've seen couple of articles on this I'll post them if I come across them again. My task at the moment though is uniting some gin with tonic, ice and a slice. Then raise a glass and say **** you all you're not dragging me down you ****s!
For a start making your most senior court a house of political appointees allied to political parties is a horrendous idea. The second reason is a power greedy generation of politicians / lawmakers in the US that choose to die in position rather than retire and make way for the next generation. Ruth Bader Ginsberg could have retired when Barack Obama was President but chose to continue and gifted Donald Trump the ability to appoint a Republican when she died at the age of 87. I mean it is a mindset in a country where you have a 79 year old president wanting to run for another term after following a 75 year old (at the time). The speaker of the House of Representatives is 82 and there are active Senators who are allegedly into cognitive decline, one Senator is 89 and has allegedly been struggling to remember names and conversations in the chamber.
What will you change it to ? ST Matador ? ST Bull ? ST Carlos Sainz ? ST Carlos Sainz JR ? ST Rafa Nadal ?
RBG's refusal to retire definitely looms large, though as you say the root issue is the politicization of the court in general; you shouldn't have to engage in gamesmanship to maintain a functioning court. The gerontocracy is also an issue, but it's worth noting that much of the political energy on the extreme right is coming from people in their 30s through 50s. Older conservatives largely had abandoned this sort of fire-and-brimstone revanchist stuff; the younger generation is even more radical.
The last two days has ensured they will have more kids to shoot. I would have loved to live in the US ten years back. Now, I’d choose virtually anywhere else.
Beyond this I wonder if it is a step towards civil conflict and the breakdown of the states. If you are a liberally minded person living in a state that now bans abortions and likely will go for gay marriage and contraception next, you will likely flee to a liberal state. Leaving a brain drain and entrenchment in Conservative states. States will gradually become so incompatible that the concept of the US will become untenable, individual states could possibly start ignoring the Supreme Court, president and Washington in general, even maybe going as far as looking to secede. Then if the US collapses what happens to their military, nuclear stockpile etc…. Further afield what happens with China, North Korea, Russia, Iran etc when there is no US left. Maybe OTT, but this is where my mind goes with all of this.
^^^This. For the last 8 years my daughter has lived there and initially, that was the plan for us too. ABSOLUTELY NO BLOODY WAY now. We have issues here, but boy that country is screwed up.
My parents used to go to Florida for 1-2 months in the winter to play golf. My dad is an old school solid blue pro-thatcher working class conservative voter who hates unions for really silly reasons from his personal experience and credits thatcher with both breaking them and allowing a pro-entrepreneurial environment that allowed him to make a success of himself But even he looks at Florida and the maga types there and thinks “not for me thanks”
The idea of a brain drain is quite overblown I think. Most people can’t afford it or have ties. The ones that don’t already left their home state. Also lots of liberal people have recently moved too Texas rather than out of it. So it isn’t that simple Remember the stats you see about how many people in this country do t have £1000 savings. I think it was something like 30%. That will be the same in the US. That plus being renters / crazy rental market also means upping and moving is not really a simple decision for most The claim often made in the abortion situation is that poorer women can’t afford to go to another state for the procedure. Consider how much more expensive actually having the child is. But they can’t. Those people can’t really move. And where would they move to? Liberal states tend to be more expensive. Imagine if the north east of England banned abortion but it was legal in Surrey. You wouldn’t get people moving down. They couldn’t
Also, many of those red states have talked about making it illegal for a resident of their state to get an out-of-state abortion, anyway.
I was more illustrating that even in the situation where they can many still can’t afford a trip out of state for a procedure that (in most cases) will save them a lot of money in the long run. The notion that they could up and move away from any support network and to a more expensive state is fanciful But even if we limit it to the educated people with good jobs - there won’t necessarily be the jobs in other states. And many have already gone anyway
