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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by softlynow

  1. 29 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    This really fucks with my brain.  I see what I think are perfectly normal black folks - older and pleasant like most of my patients - watching FoxNews every time I see them.  I can’t wrap my head around these people all getting behind trump but I think that has to be the case.  And don’t get my started on the Hispanics.  We sooo fucked.  

    The same phenomenon showed up this year when season 4 of The Boys came out. MAGAts suddenly realized they were being skewered. For 3 seasons of relentless lampooning of the right, our lemming neighbors somehow loved the show. Unfortunately, I doubt there will be a politics equivalent to the season 4 Trumpkin entertainment awakening.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  2. 14 minutes ago, Red Five said:

    Harris is at 50c on predictit now. Biden is at 30.

    For those of you still convinced, here’s your opportunity to make a bunch of money. I personally think Biden will announce he’s not running sometime next week. The question is will he resign.

    If he's not running, it means he knows he's lost the confidence of the people, and that they're right to have lost it. If he's not running, he should resign.

    On top of that, all the media will talk about for a couple weeks will be Kamala. She will have the stage almost entirely to herself, even putting Trump on the sidelines for a bit (unless that two weeks includes his sentencing, I forgot that date right now).

    If he's not running, it's the best shot at averting this catasrophe. 

    If he doesn't resign, the convention will be a shitshow. Think 1968, but in the building, not out front. And the result in November will be the same.

  3. 1 minute ago, mdmost said:

    I think at this moment it is best to begin putting in as many safeguards in place as possible to keep our democracy as functional as possible to survive the next 4 years. I don’t know what that is and I hope smarter people in the government do. 

    The ones who don't have private sector options are probably already in full CYA mode. The best we can hope is that a good portion the military brass and the folks in charge of anything nuclear-related are putting collective interests above their own. 

  4. Look at this thread as to why Biden stepping aside would be fun for all, but dangerous for Dems/Democracy. A contested convention would be a live action version of a football game thread with the volume turned up to 11 and the stakes for fucking real. No telling how that shit would go. Contested conventions could be be unpredictable in the era when mass media was the evening newspaper, and now the news is old in 15 minutes, with the added bonus that anyone with a phone could be "reporting" news or simply trying to mislead. You might end up with someone way, way, way off the radar swooping in to take the nomination. It could be Stacey Abrams, Sherrod Brown, AOC, John Cena, Al Franken, or Jimmy Smits.

    Folks who assume Gavin just strolls in and takes it are delusional.

    It might be the best cable news TV week of all time. If this is the year we lose democracy, we might as well be entertained. What do you say, Joe? 

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  5. 2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Not my point.  Even The Great Communicator had some massive fumbles, on a debate stage, and won reelection while facing questions about his age and infirmity.

    He ran against a guy vowing to raise taxes (and right when the most self-centered generation was looking to get paid), an economy on the rebound from a quite dismal period, and his party lockstep behind him.

    Biden does have the opponent whose ceiling does seem to be ~42%, which is nice. But he's facing a press that will not allow people to think this economy is even OK, and is a Democrat, for whom being in lockstep is a rarity, and certainly a longshot this go 'round.

    We need to accept that we're off the map here. That doesn't mean either course is preferable, it just means, to me, that the predictive value of any previous election is rather thin. About the only thing I agree with, in that regard, is the power of incumbency.

    I think if Joe wasn't going to seek reelection, he would've said so long before now.

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  6. 12 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    The first sentence is absolutely true, but the rest is not. The courts can still restrain a president from enacting decisions that are outside the executive function. The courts said Biden's student loan forgiveness program was outside of executive powers. That was not a criminal prosecution and immunity plays no role in that analysis whatsoever. How can anyone possibly believe that today's decision could benefit Biden in any way whatsoever? If trump wins and has Biden prosecuted for his border policy, SCOTUS will just say it wasn't an official act, because reasons. That's the problem, SCOTUS has abdicated it's role as a check on executive power and has become a rubberstamp for magastan.

    The Courts can restrain, you say? Them and what army?

    • Like 2
  7. 3 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    WTF are you talking about? Of course I see it, this SCOTUS is rogue as fuck. I honestly don't even know what you're talking about anymore. Surely, you agree that Biden can't just do whatever he wants and get away with it because of immunity from criminal prosecutions, right? This SCOTUS would strike it all down, because criminal immunity has nothing to do with judicial checks on executive powers and decision making. They'll reverse Biden at every turn, and rubber stamp Trump. Again, it has nothing to do with criminal immunity. If Biden is charged with a crime later, the decision won't protect him either, because this SCOTUS is nothing more than another political branch. They'll just say whatever he did wasn't "official", ergo, no immunity. 

    He's talking about SCOTUS deligitimizing the federal government to the point that only pure power matters. Biden can do what he wants, within the practical limits of his power. He is immune from criminal prosecution for official acts. To the extent that he can direct people to act, he is unrestrained.

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  8. 1 minute ago, Sawbonz said:

    One side protected, but not bound by the law, the other side bound, but not protected.  
     

    at its core the prevention of that relies on the courts, and the courts have failed

    Yep.

    Our little experiment only carries on as long as the people buy in. One half of the electorate was already ready to be done with the republic. 6 justices are trying their best to persuade the other half.

    Long live King Biden I! He should act like it lest he be responsible for Dotard I.

    • Rage+1 2
  9. 2 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

    Arrest is usually a revolving door unless they have committed a violent crime. So I don’t really consider that an involuntary commitment in the sense of addressing that individual’s homelessness 

    Some of my clients saw arrest as temporary and desirable a solution to that problem, though those "commitments" were essentially voluntary.

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  10. 3 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

    This is beyond the scope of this thread, especially with what is going on with respect to presidential immunity, but if you have actually interacted with these people, you know a large percentage of them are beyond help for the most part in terms of getting them to a functioning level. The medications that help them stay in reality make them feel horrible so they don’t take them.  off medication, they hallucinate and often become violent, and are a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Add substance abuse on top of this, and it’s a horrible situation for all involved. They are a danger to the family members and loved ones, which is often the main reason they are out of doors in the first place. They are a danger to the other residents in group homes, and even when they are not, they are often unable to abide by the rules that will allow them to stay there. Giving them money does not help, because in those cases, they are not competent to manage their own finances and not operative with people, but in charge of managing them for them. It is very difficult to involuntarily commit this population, and even if you can, it is extremely difficult to manage them, but they are in an involuntarily committed situation. It’s a huge problem

     

    also, I would be interested to know how many of these patients were referred to you from directly off the street, and of those what has been your longitudinal experience with these clients over 10 or more years. Their prognosis is grim in my experience.

    I'm given their name and access to the state's file on day 1. Those with moderated to severe illness are almost always still in jail when I am assigned. I have seen a few of them a couple or many years later.

    I mostly don't disagree with anything you've said. But I would add that the folks with less severe issues than you describe are also a problem we've decided to mostly ignore, outside of the criminal justice system.

    One point I take issue with: we DO involuntarily commit. A lot. We just call it "arrest." Then we don't treat them, for the most part. I've had many, many discussions with ADAs and judges about whether any of our very limited mental health resources are available for a client. I'd say less than 5% of the time, it's even a possibility. A tiny portion of that get to treatment.

    I would guess that 75% of our homeless population has a criminal record, even if we disregard tresspassing convictions, which is really just a Scarlet H.

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  11. @Dbeasy, now that I'm caught up on the deck chairs arranging that is this homelessness argument, I just gotta say you have been a terrible advocate for this ruling. I think it was correctly decided, but seeing your posts before the ruling, I was initially inclined the other way. JMO, but you could do with some nuance in your argumentation. And you should focus on the actual opinion, not our general policies w/r/t the homeless. The first couple pages of the opinion do a good job of walking one through what should and should not be considered "cruel and unusual." That would've been a better place for you to ground your position.

    Just a little constructive criticism.

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  12. 4 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

    How many schizoaffective disorder alcoholic meth addicts have you personally encountered?

    I've represented several dozen formally diagnose as schizoaffective. Several dozen more with other mental illnesses that contributed to anti-social behavior. I was appointed to represent them because they had no money or significant property.

     

    Just now, Sawbonz said:

    The vast majority of homeless in America do suffer from these things. 

    And?

    I think the question is whether they are homeless involuntarily. I'm not aware of people voluntarily becoming schizoaffective.

    Just want to know where you're going with this.

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  13. 29 minutes ago, Pancho said:

    So…how does law school work right now? Because if I was in law school or just recently graduated, I’d demand a refund.

    Law school is, first and foremost, a means to an income. Every other consideration is secondary. Right now law students and recent grads are seeing that corruption can be quite lucrative and their opportunities in that field are increasing. Why would they want a refund?

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  14. 16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Eh, I don't know about that.  This was predictable even before the Court did its recent heel turn.  They have been cutting back on expansive readings of criminal statutes for a good long while, in a more or less bipartisan way.    Given Jackson's criminal law experience on the defense side, her joining in is unsurprising.

    I have expressed my dislike for the gross expansion of federal criminal law since the 60s or 70s, but I'm not quite sure the Supremes are where it should be reversed.

    That said, because of the electoral votes aspect of the obstruction, this may still fly with Trump.

    Where the hell is the immunity decision?  Is this the end of the term?

    I’m sorry. Were y’all really expecting the Court to not hand Trump an assist by delaying the immunity decision as long as necessary?

    On the 1/6 cases, how many of the defendants are solely charged with the obstruction statute SCOTUS dealt with? In this case, I believe it was only 1 of 7 charges. The others they did not discuss. Hardly a resounding win for that defendant. 

    • Like 1
  15. 11 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

    Brief explainer: 

     

     

    8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


    It’s not as disastrous as it looks on its face. But yeah, it’s overreach and a nonsensical read. If the defendants at issue were BLM rioters, it absolutely would have been a different result.
    There is a systematic approach to empowering and protecting white paramilitary/terrorist activity. This is a small piece of it. But it is indeed a piece.

    Shit is going to get more violent and bloody, enabled by our SCOTUS and our next president.

    Tap the brakes. Jackson concurred with the majority. I skimmed the majority and the concurrence, and, while I didn't see enough to analyze the opinion itself, that quick read does tell me this will have a very limited impact on 1/6 prosecutions. 

  16. 1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

    If a quick perusal of the librul media is any indication, the next couple of weeks are going to be a hoot. The consensus among the punditocracy seems to be that Joe Biden needs to drop out ASAP for the good of the country. 

    Buckle up.

    Kenan Thompson Eating GIF by Saturday Night Live

    Trump immunity ruling from SCOTUS stops that cycle.

    • Rage+1 1
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