News bits

Filibuster of same-sex marriage bill broken

This is a shocker. NPR writes: “All 50 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted to advance the bill, clearing a 60-vote threshold. .... In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the landmark 2015 case that legalized same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, rests on the same legal principles that underscored Roe. No case challenging the right to marry has yet made it to the Supreme Court, but advocates feared Thomas was setting the stage for Obergefell's reversal.” 

The 12 Republican treasonous traitors are now presumably targeted for RINO hunting unless they are not running for re-election. The traitors did not include Ted Cruz. No surprise there. He’s as hard core Christian nationalist as Sam Alito. But his 13-year old daughter came out as bisexual recently. One joker commented on that hypothetical conversation with daddy:

Daughter: Dad, I'm bisexual

Dad: Honey, you're going to go to hell if you stay like that
Daughter: Will you be in hell?
Dad: Of course not
Daughter: Sweet, I’m fine with that then

Interestingly, also in that filibustered bill are provisions that protect interracial marriage. Mitch McConnell voted to keep the filibuster in place to block the bill from being passed in the Senate. McConnell, like Clarence Thomas, is in an interracial marriage. His wife is Asian. 

Republicans retake the House

We all know what that means. Gridlock accompanied by vengeful Christian nationalism and a ruthless brass knuckles capitalism. Those two will happily continue their relentless march toward kleptocracy, The gridlock will extend as far as the eye can see on a clear day from a large window of an airplane flying at 37,000 feet. How far is that? Until the outcome of the 2024 elections become clear.

Republicans and their propaganda Leviathan, e.g., Faux News, will probably call their new control of the House something along the lines of a ‘massive landslide victory’. (/s ?) They will likely claim a ‘gigantic mandate’ to remake America in the image of God and robber barons of the 1800s and early 1900s, although they won’t call their robber baron agenda that. (not /s) They will call it something like reducing the size of government and reducing regulations. They certainly will not point out that the robber baron agenda amounts to a major transfer of power and wealth from government and the people to wealthy people and powerful special interests, including the Republican Party. 

The state of democracy

Voting data from the 2022 elections is still being analyzed, but a couple of observations are probably going to be confirmed. They are good news.

• More Democrats than Republicans were motivated to vote out of fear for the fate of democracy in America
• A significant number of voters were driven by fear or anger about loss of abortion and other rights such as same-sex marriage (maybe that is why those 12 Republican Senators voted to break the filibuster of the same-sex marriage bill)
• Americans generally voted against the Republican candidates who were among the more extreme of the crackpot stolen election liars

But the real test of democracy will come in 2024. By then the Supreme Court will have decided the Moore v. Harper case on whether elections can be nullified by state legislatures. Wikipedia comments on the pending Moore case: Moore v. Harper is expected to have a significant impact on future federal elections in the U.S. should the court support the independent state legislature theory. Three of the current Justices—namely, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch—had stated in the dissent to the Court's March 2022 order denial that they believed the state argued correctly on employing the independent state legislature theory. Should the court rule in the state's favor, the ruling would likely impact the 2024 United States elections.