If You're Gay, Don't Despair With Trump (Yet).

As I tell people, ultra conservatives on the Supreme Court aren't always hostile towards gay rights. John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch support gay rights. But in a more moderate, traditional way. They would, for example, never vote in favor of gay marriage. But they would see it as precedent. Roberts would probably uphold the gay marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges. As I said, he would see it as precedent. But would Gorsuch? If you remember, Gorsuch was Donald Trump's first SCOTUS appointment. Then gay people hurt Trumps feelings by criticizing and insulting him. And then he appointed Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who really don't support gay rights in any way.

But who will he appoint this time? If he just replaces the three very old ultra conservatives, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, with more ultra conservatives, it might make very little difference anyways. Unless he replaces them with people who are grossly unqualified, of course. And, if he replaces them with people like Roberts and Gorsuch, it might even be a good thing. So this still might all get interesting.

 

Then by definition, they don't support Gay Rights. If consenting adults don't have the fundamental right to marry who they love (or control their own bodily autonomy, or conform to the gender they subjectively identify with), they are prima facie relegated to the status of second-class citizens.

While it's true that Trump is renowned the world over for being extremely vain, cruel, and vindictive, the notion that he appointed Kavanaugh and Barrett because Gay people hurt his delicate feelings has got to be one of the dumbest things I've heard in recent memory (and considering the times, that's really saying something). He nominated them to advance his neo-Fascist agenda (like all his judicial nominations they were vetted by the Heritage Foundation not for competency, but ideological purity), because they're relatively young, and because 24% of U.S. adults describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Protestants, and 85% of them vote Republican; Christo-Fascists are an absolutely indespensible segment of his electoral base. On the other hand, only 7.1% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ, and 86% of them vote Democratic; easy to throw under the political bus. Besides, like any good Fascist he promotes the ideal of a glorious nationalistic past that has been defiled and sabotaged by the most powerless and marginalized minorities who he relentlessly scapegoats; LGBTQ are cheap and easy targets, with the added value of red-meat pandering to his knuckle-dragging hate-filled homophobic voters. Alito and Thomas have both explicitly called for vacating Obergefell v. Hodges and Lawrence v. Texas; under this regime, don't expect any mercy from their successors.

No' it's not going the be "a good thing". It's going to be utterly fucking catastrophic! More than a quarter of currently active federal judges are now Trump appointees. Trump appointed three of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices, 30% of the nation’s active appeals court judges and 27% of active district court judges. Currently the Federal judiciary has 41 vacancies, with 13 pending Biden nominees without a snowball's chance in hell of getting confirmed. The American Bar Association has rated more of Trump’s appointees as “Not Qualified” than any other president in modern history (so Republicans stopped using the ABA's imprimatur during the confirmation process). Worst of all, the average age of Trump’s judicial nominations was about 48.5 at the time they were appointed, and Federal judges serve for life. They will be collectively shitting and pissing in democracy's well for decades, long after you, I, and Trump are dead and gone.
We're irredeemably fucked.

The implosion of empires always is.

 

Also, the original intent judicial philosophy won't give some Republicans what they want. It is one of the most liberal documents in world history with its rights. And it never mentions the Bible or God once. Kind of hard to claim a theocracy with that. So, they once said, people like Pat Buchanan think we need a judicial philosophy even more conservative than original intent. Or we need judges who aren't even qualified. The American Bar Association has rated more of Trump’s appointees “not qualified” than any other president as Piobaire said. So don't listen to them, people like Mitch McConnell say. Have the Heritage Foundation rate all federal judges, not for competency, but for ideology, they say.

Have a judge who interprets the Bible, not the Constitution some say. Or amend the Constitution. Or my community college professor told us in 1997, scrap the Constitution, and start over. Write a new Constitution. But not by the people, just by whatever politicians show up at that state convention. Usually radical GOP's and MAGA's, who are in the state majority (not popular majority), or gerrymandered in.

 

If I could give Donald one word of advice, it would be to turn his mouth off and wait for his brain to catch up.

A couple of my friends worked with him some years ago. His fiery attitude was great fun, but when he came to his senses everything was fine. The most important part was that he did not bear a grudge towards the people who had saved him from making a fool of himself. They just went off and had a coffee.

As president, people are far too intimidated by him.
His ideas for making America great again were totally sound, he just needed people who were paid to do there jobs to thrash out how to do it, rather than ridicule him behind his back.

To understand America, first you need to understand that the corporation's have degenerated into nothing more than parasites. They simply get away with it by funding the political parties and MORE importantly the media.

Just think about this.
America can repel a nuclear attack from Russia or China. But they can to nothing to repel millions of dollars worth of drugs crossing the Mexican border every day.
If that makes any sense to you, you can clearly see the level of corruption destroying your country.

 

I wouldn't go so far. Not all Americans though I'm surprised, shocked even, that there is so many. But, hey, that's populism. It'll run it's course and we'll be in ne new place afterwards, if it isn't completely busted by then. Just as with populism before.

 

Maybe a very small majority, but the ones with very loud mouths.

Every year on remembrance Sunday, here in London there is a very solemn mood as we remember those young soldiers from the US and India, who died to preserve democracy thousands of miles from home.Even today tears are shed.

Following WW2, America saw vast prosperity, only to blow it all by greed, wanting even more pay for less work. The corporations started importing from China, but the government did nothing stop them, despite knowing that as jobs were lost economic collapse would follow. Detroit became one of the first examples.

I agree with you regarding nuclear war, but that does not excuse the CIA becoming complicit in drug smuggling.

Trump is a goofy old fool with a very loud mouth, but I think he sees the problems in the US far better than we give him credit for.
Biden is also a goofy old fool, but with zero understanding of the problems.

As a matter of interest.
When Trump blew the whistle on China, putting them into blind panic, they ran to the media and the fake news started.
Meanwhile we needed that whistle to bring us to our senses and Chinese imports to the UK have now fallen by around 70%
Perhaps Trump should emigrate to the UK. With the help of a cupboard full of gobstoppers we may be able to keep him in check.
Sadly, probably less so, since the death of our late queen.

 

You don't have to worry (op). The supreme Court is not about special interests, it's about interpreting the Constitution and deciding if laws passed by governing bodies defy constitutional mandates and threaten constitutional liberties.

Gay marriage is such a series of laws that either adhere to the principles of the Constitution, or not. They've been deemed compatible.

Basically what lawmakers did was to recognize a union between two people of the same sex for legal purposes such as tax code and inheritance mandates that had been established to support the social institute of marriage, which they deemed beneficial to society as a whole.

 

Biden just did what he was told to do by his handlers.

They secured funding for their pet projects which benefitted themselves and their friends.

They have sent all kinds of money to countries known to provide kickbacks.

They have ignored running up the debt and devaluing the dollar with their self serving agenda.

Will that get addressed by the incoming admin? They say they will, so that gives hope. But we'll have to wait and see.

 

The one thing that is becoming apparent to me is that US news is reported very differently in the UK.
Thank you for showing me the other side of the coin and the good work done by Biden The states that you mentioned previously, where new politics are emerging was certainly music to my ears.

I am not suggesting for one moment that life in the UK is perfect, we have more than our fair share of dopy politicians, not to mention a PM who lasted about 3 days.
Our success during covid was entirely the work of doctors and our decisions to cut imports from China were largely made by companies.

 

That's not how it works and you know it, deep down in the bowls below the facade.

 

I used to enjoy the BBC, back when they were on a time slot that suited my schedule.

The news industries in the US are bought and paid for by the corporo-political machine. For example, we're one of a couple of countries that allow the giant pharmaceutical companies to run advertisements of their snake oil directly to consumers. It's very persuasive and highly lucrative for both industries. That's why you don't see investigative journalism targeting the industries of their advertisers. Plus, speculation abounds that ownership is partisan and that regulatory agencies have an effect on content. In any case, it's very obvious by the language they use and the way they present things that they're pushing an agenda rather than being neutral and seeking truth. You hear things like "false claim" thrown into a story in cases where we know there's no way to verify the claim is false or true, yet they present it as if they magically know the unknowable.

So the news in the US is really an entertainment industry. Anyone who has reached the level of understanding can see that they are not credible. They could be right sometimes, or wrong sometimes, but we know not to take their word either way, whether we want them to be right or not. I mean, you can literally see a speech and hear what someone says then see the news telling you they said the opposite. The news is persuasive propaganda, simply out for what they perceive to be their own interests, and it's entertaining to watch it unfold in front of your eyes.

 

Even if Biden's decisions were based on the work of his advisors, he still deserves the credit.

Trump went wrong by opening his big mouth BEFORE he took advice and worked out solutions that could work.

No one, regardless of his position knows everything. While I have designed award winning theatres, when it comes to the decorative plaster work I would not know where to start. I would also not be able to weave the carpets or upholster the chairs.

 

True! That's why people have been saying "let's go Brandon".