I do think Bernie could have won in 2016. Many people who voted for trump would have preferred Bernie instead. The people of this country want serious change. Thinking trump would want the same was their mistake. and now because they can't say "I made a mistake", they blindly support him.
Either way, they took away the right of Obama and gave it to trump, so, now we take away trump's right and give it to the next president. Yes, I know, that's a naïve thought. But, ... maybe we should treat presidents like we do kindergarteners.
There are plenty (who are obviously not on the supreme court) who differ with that judgement. It is not merely that it is reasonable to "use force", but that lethal force was reasonable in that particular instance, in which another person besides the suspect also died. And the finding was also that qualified immunity would have applied even if it hadn't been. That gives the cops a lot of leeway to kill people who they claim are a threat to public safety and you will note that they have adjusted their procedures and training accordingly. These findings are part of a pattern from SCOTUS. One would expect a dedicated liberal to oppose such a pattern. Ginsburg didn't do that. So yeah, on womens rights - good. On police violence - not so good.
You can be a dedicated liberal and still recognize when police are justified in using deadly force to neutralize a public safety threat. There are other cases where qualified immunity was suspect. This was not one of them.
Bernie would have been absolutely destroyed in 2016. A lot of Hillary voters would have stayed home or even crossed the aisle to vote for Trump. In partiular, black voters -- one of the backbones of the Democratic base -- don't particularly feel the Bern, whether it's because they don't trust him inherently, they think that he is too slow to factor in the influence of race in America, don't think America is going to vote for someone as left as him, or (gag) because they are too blind to see that a vote for Bernie is in their self-interest. There would be a way bigger get-out-the-vote effort by moderates and conservatives against a self-proclaimed socialist when the public was far less ready to embrace one. And if you think that the DNC took effective steps to prevent Bernie from winning the primary, those would pale compared to the full-fledged onslaught from the RNC and other political actors. Whatever you might attribute to the DNC, at the end of the day, it had to play nice on a certain level. There'd be nothing to hold the Trump campaign back.
If this is the best decision you can rustle up to show Justice Ginsburg's supposed mixed record on criminal justice, that's weak sauce.
Sure. Original intent means original intent of the author or authors at the time it was written. As in what did the author of the legislation say on the house or senate floor when pushing this particular legislation or what did they write in journals or letters. That’s what we use to interpret that law. Strict construction means strictly adhering to the plain writing of the law and not deviating from that. You don’t get to add in your feelings. There are some exceptions like the ninth amendment because nobody can think of every future scenario where the right to privacy might apply and I doubt the right to an abortion would have came up at the time it was written. I’m sure someone will go down the right to bear arms and I will point out that the second amendment doesn’t say the right to bear arms and arms are defined as long rifles and people can only bear the arms that are available at the time this amendment was written even if further developments in technology exist in the future. If that’s what the second amendment we’re to say then we’d only be allowed to own muskets that would have been designed in 1790.
Bernie energized a wide swath of the polity that no-one else could motivate. People are stupid and love the idea of "free" stuff. He would likely have CRUSHED Trump. Many potential Hillary voters stayed home rather than vote for someone other than Bernie. Youth turnout was lower than it would have been.
Bernie's ability to translate that energy that he is able to muster on social media and in speeches into actual votes has been proved wanting in two primaries now. There's no reason to think it would have been better in a general election.
If the original intent was all that clear why do we need courts to interpret laws anyway? ETA: why were there "Federalist" and "Anti-Federalist" Papers that explained the intent of the writers from different points of view?
Bernie one-on-one is everybody's meshugana uncle from Brooklyn - warm, well-informed, opinionated but willing to listen. Bernie behind the podium is... opinionated. Repetitive, on-message to the point that he becomes the message. He lacks "charm." And then there's that accent. Anyone who doubts there's still bias against Jews and NYers in the rest of this country hasn't been listening to the roars of approval every time the Asshole-in-Chief opens his hole.
Bernie's plan was not outright socialism. Rather ... essentially moving the US back to the left side of right wing politics. All his ideas are now even being proposed by some right wing politicians. So, it's not that Bernie or his ideas were bad, rather the Democratic Party (and the wealthy who control it) did not want Bernie as the nominee. So, they convinced the Democratic voters that he could not win. and continued to vilify him. Had the Democratic Party allowed him the support and didn't vilify him, he could have and would have won the election.
If the dems actually backed him and wanted to go back to the left he would have wiped the floor with the right. They do not really want that. They actually want to solidify the trump tax cuts, add to the power of the federal government, and continue on with the MIC and foreign wars.
The school district where I live and my kids went to school names all of its high schools after Supreme Court justices. There's a new one scheduled to open in 2022 and Ginsburg is apparently one of two names being considered.
I just heard a blurb of an interview where Trump said that it's time for women to have more representation on the Supreme court, and that's why he's nominating a woman.
I'm not even gonna go there. In my experience (and only in my anecdotal experience) around 80% of the ardent anti-abortion people who are women that I know (and that's being conservative) have had abortions as a form of birth control...so I can't even speculate on how pro-life is anti-woman because absolutely NONE of that shit makes any sense.
I'll see your anecdotal evidence and raise you another (third-hand) anecdote: Woman turns up in a clinic wanting an abortion. Intake nurse asks her the requisite questions and notices her address. Nurse: Ma'am, you know, there's a clinic right in your home town. You didn't need to drive all this way. Patient: I can't go there. I'm with Operation Rescue. That's where I picket every week. No idea whether it's true.
Yeah if that "purpose of being a lawyer" quote is real, that should be disqualifying to everyone who claims to be a believer in secular government.
The Democratic Party did nothing meaningful (other than having rules that were in place well before he ran) to stop people from feeling the Bern and voting him as their candidate in 2016 or 2020. The discussions I have had with Bernie Backers have boiled down to such things as well they didn't have the number of debates he wanted in 2016, or the existence of the superdelegates back how they used to be, or the media coverage favored Hillary/Joe, or the like. None of that changes the simple facts that he couldn't dig up the votes that would have put him as the nominee. Didn't even come close. The Party didn't get out its mind control ray and stop people from voting Bernie. But again, if you believe that it really served as a serious obstacle to his getting the nomination, I don't understand how someone could think that the Republican Party -- with way more wealthy people, more incentive to stop him and no incentive to hold anything back) wouldn't just demolish him.
...other than making sure the Big Money backers gathered around Hillary and slammed the door in his face. Three words: Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
If Bernie were capable of firing up people and actually getting them to vote, it would have mattered not at all that big money donors lined up behind Hillary and in 2020 Joe. In fact, as I understand it, Bernie had way more money than Joe for the bulk of the primary. It takes real doublethink to believe simultaneously that Bernie was the victim of DNC interference that prevented him from winning either primary and yet Bernie would have overcome all efforts from the RNC and others to win the presidency if he were the candidate.
Eh, I dunno about that. Imagine if Kasich had switched to the Democratic Party and ran this year. Given how they treated Chaffee in 2008, it's inconceivable he'd have won the Democratic primary. But if he had somehow, I don't think there's any doubt at all he could beat Trump.
Except it's not doublethink. You're being incredibly obtuse to think so. Had the DNC embraced Bernie as their candidate and backed him in the General, just as they did Hillary, then he could have won. However, as he had both major parties against him, people like you have fallen for the old "oh, he couldn't have won anyway. AND he was a socialist!!!!" Stop telling others they aren't seeing things clearly, when you clearly are not.