The federal judiciary is too small, and has been for decades. Likewise with the supreme court. Congress can expand both, if they have the guts to do it. Republicans have demonstrated that there's no value in adhering to norms, so the dems, if they achieve another blue wave, can reform the courts and bring them into the 21st century by expanding them considerably. This will dilute the trump appointments. Remember also that that state courts aren't controlled by trump or the fed gov't and have considerable power, albeit in their own states.
If a democrat wins the presidency in 2020, which I believe will happen, that person will replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Steven Breyer, but possibly Clarence Thomas too, and who knows who else. If the next president is a democrat and retains the presidency for 8 years, he or she will appoint A LOT of judges, including retiring judges appointed by Reagan and both Bushes.
I know some folks are feeling glum, and I don't want to minimize anyone's feelings, but my money is on an expansion of the judiciary in the coming 5-10 years, if not sooner.
Lynn - yes, there are provisions in the Constitution that allow for increasing the federal judiciary, including SCOTUS. Also to be considered is increasing the sheer number of Reps in the House - it's been nearly 100 years since a change, and it's long overdue (but that's the GOP's next pet project - jigger the censuses so that it doesn't change to favor progressive states).
I think both should and eventually will change/increase, but not for decades. As long as we have an electoral college, it won't.
Lynn, Laura, in the past read the future night in January, I saw that there will be a young centrist Democrat male president with a female VP. However, as with any election, there will be caveats of voter suppression and Russia meddling. It's likely that Mueller will have the report released later this year.
Should we be sending light to Michael Cohen? Does anyone have a sense whether his allegiance now lies w the truth v Donald trump? Or is he just trying to save himself? There seem to be plenty of people scorched by trump who might be able to help bring the truth to light.
Laura, I remember in 2008 when David Patterson became governor of NY State (where I live) many of us in the progressive community rejoiced because we believed he'd be able to get marriage equality passed into law. He couldn't, and I remember thinking at the time that I'd never see it in my lifetime, not in NY, and certainly not nationally. Yet just a few years later Andrew Cuomo (no big progressive) did push it through, and very shortly thereafter a pretty conservative sup ct decided the Windsor case. Suddenly the impossible became real. I guess my point is that things turn on a dime, for the good and bad. I mean, who would have thought we'd have a russian asset in the white house?!! But they could turn back around just as suddenly as they went sideways. What may seem impossible could be around the corner, but we just don't see it yet. I really do believe things will get better, and that they are in fact green shoots sprouting all around us.
Laura, I would urge you to reconsider your view that change for the better will only come incrementally. We've discussed on this forum multiple times how natural systems such as global climate tend to change in a nonlinear fashion, which explains why weather patterns are changing more rapidly every year. But, by the same token, human culture is also a system that shifts exponentially in volatile periods, and that makes Lynn's example of same-sex marriage in the United States so poignant; once a critical mass has been reached, ideas of what's possible can gain rapid acknowledgement and acceptance.
We really are living in a revolutionary turning of the ages. Yes, it's scary, but the very volatility of societal phase shifts make them ripe for transformative change. As Bayo Akomolafe wrote in his amazing post-election piece from 2016, "Trump strolled to the grand stage in the front and wrecked it, but in so doing he inadvertently 'gave' us permission to inhabit the aisles - to rearrange the entire room." So don't let Trump's judicial appointments get you down. It's possible that in 10 years time our values will have shifted so rapidly that state and municipal governments will no longer regard Trump-era judges as being legitimate, and instead will be conducting litigation through legal avenues that don't yet exist. Perhaps the federal courts will be dissolved in their current form and restructured to better address our dire economic and environmental crises.
Whatever happens, the courts are only one more human concept that is at the whim of the collective. The same can be said of banks, the military, universities, legislatures, religious organizations, corporations etc. Our institutions are manifestations of the collective, so none one of them can resist the collective's hunger for a global reordering. It helps to remember that the American Revolution and an independent United States were unthinkable up until the late-1760s. Ten years later, Americans had nullified the divine rule of monarchy. I figure that if they could do it, nothing says we as 21st-century citizens can't assert our positions "in the aisle" and bring about radical transformation.
Beautifully said, Coyote. I wholeheartedly agree with how you've so well described the emergence of transformative change. And thanks, too, for the cool and liberating Akomolafe quote, as well as the link to his "Open Letter to the Brokenhearted."
Coyote - I don't think our views are in contradiction. My point is more about not ignoring the power of evil, but to acknowledge it in order to move forward. In terms of linear vs. non-linear, my lifespan is, to date, lived in a linear fashion (I don't currently have a TARDIS). My concerns stem from how non-linear change often only occurs with great violence, and just because it's non-linear still doesn't mean it will occur within my [linear] lifetime.
Apologies that I led everyone on here off the Mueller discussion path...
And Clarence Thomas announced this week that he plans to resign before the 2020 election...
To shift us back on topic - let's all send our best visioning to Mueller - that his plans to protect his work are not thwarted, that the seeds he has planted take root and grow toward the sun. That it all comes to light, and that THAT is what drives the much needed change for our country.
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This has been a fascinating discussion, uplifting and optimistic with a grim reminder of what a dangerous course our country is upon. For a while, I felt such aversion to Barr, the very sight of his face was disturbing to me. His letter to Trump criticizing the Mueller probe seems opportunistic at best and one must consider the possibility that he was campaigning for Sessions job. However, Barr is also known as an institutionalist. This article about Barr written by Benjamin Wittes, the editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, is the best commentary I've read on the man to date: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/ben-wittes-william-barr-attorney-general-better-alternatives/577699/
Another thing to keep in mind is that any day now, Barr will be able to see the breadth and depth of Mueller's investigation. He will know the extent of the crimes exposed. Will he protect our democracy from authoritarianism?
Bluebelle, thank you for your post. Reminder that earlier this week I heard Barr telling Trump (in my mind), "I can't totally muffle this thing. You have to face some of this." (I posted this Wednesday.) It implies that Barr will help Trump but not completely.
As far as the SCOTUS is concerned, since Thomas has said he will resign before Trump leaves office, it will stay 5-4, however, if the Democrats take over the Senate and WH, they can play GOP dirty and add 2 seats to the court and take it back over. It sets bad precedent, but after Trump all the norms are out the door anyway.
Bumping this thread now that House has voted 420 - 0 unanimously for release of full Muller report. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/14/703369516/house-votes-almost-unanimously-for-public-release-of-mueller-report. The vote is not binding but it represents a huge bipartisan view that includes house republicans that they want the truth of Mueller's findings.
NY Times: "House Democrats are prepared to use subpoena power and other tools at their disposal to force the Justice Department to turn over anything Mr. Barr chooses to withhold."
I just wanted to say that I have come around to Nancy Pelosi's way of thinking. I have been vehemently in favor of impeachment from day one. After what she said the other day, I meditated on it, and I now think she's right, he's not worth it. I think she may have correctly judged the nutbars who are just itching to start Civil War 2.0. Better to hang tight, work to get Cheetolini out, and then come January 2021 we can throw him in jail and toss the key in a volcano. I rarely agree with her, yet somehow her words on this resonated in a way that has [surprisingly] calmed a lot of my fears.
Like Speaker Pelosi, I'm old enough to remember how Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Enough bad stuff came out that a critical mass was reached wanting him gone. At that point, his fellow Republicans were the ones who forced him out. My personal feeling is that Speaker Pelosi is confident that enough irrefutable evidence is about to come out that there will be no need for Dems to push for impeachment. Republicans will show Trump the door because that will be looking at a total wipe out in 2020 and they want to salvage something. Never underestimate Speaker Pelosi.
I can't help but turn this in to a teachable moment about intuition.
From the beginning, I have never seen impeachment for Trump in spite of so many psychics out there saying he would be impeached. The Internet psychics' impeachment predictions came in waves - a large number predicted it for 2017 and then again for March 2019 after the House turned blue last November.
When the House turned blue, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't impeach, but I still hadn't seen it in my own meditations. I felt the pressure to adjust my prediction but after screwing up the Hillary prediction by deferring to others, I have learned to stick with what I get. Good to trust one's personal intuition even when it conflicts with logic. Now, thanks to Laura and Paul's posts, I see the reasoning.
Jeanne, if there is decisive evidence against Trump and the Republicans throw him out, or make a deal they won't prosecute him if he agrees to not run in 2020, do you or anyone on the site see Nikki Haley as the nominee? She does look like she has the inside track to replace Pence. I'd seen her in some of the read the future classes though I find it hard to believe the patriarchal Rs would nominate a woman. Still...
Laura, I agree. Just want to add that there was a commentator on CNN recently who made a very insightful point that illuminated for me the wisdom of Nancy Pelosi's position. He said that it's important to wait until a more complete picture of the evidence comes forward. Otherwise, rushing to impeach on relatively minor crimes will end up being a lost opportunity to bring more major crimes to light -- missing the forest for the trees. Further, rushing to impeach now would make it seem like a one-sided political interest/maneuver by the opposition, but if we wait until we can impeach bilaterally (or prosecute after his term ends) with full evidence available, it will be more obvious for all the world and for posterity that justice is indeed and truly being served.
Ever since Trumpty became President, I've had a sense that his "rise to office" is really his karmic punishment. Yes, I did worry a little bit in the beginning, but deep down I've had confidence in the strength of the Constitution and the commitment of the many agencies and layers of the U.S. government to preserving its rule of law -- that the U.S. democracy will survive this fascist authoritarian in the White House. As time goes on, my confidence in our government institutions and the wisdom of our founding fathers grows deeper yet, especially as the karma continues to emerge:
If Trumpty never ran for President, and if he hadn't gotten elected, would the world have known about how he cheats and cons the people and small businesses who work for him? Would we have known the extent to which he lies pathologically? How much of a weak, insecure narcissist he is, and the fact that that he really is quite an incompetent businessman, relying primarily on bullying and scams (such as not paying his bills for services rendered, and tax evasion) to make profits? How heavily involved and indebted he is to the Mob, especially Russian organized crime? How deeply bigoted and sexist he is, and all the reports of women being sexually assaulted by him that have come forward?
I had grown weary of his TV show, after watching it for several seasons, but I had simply been indifferent to him back then, before his official entry into politics. I had seen him as just another successful businessman who was dabbling in becoming an entertainment celebrity. Having surrounded myself with a bubble of intellectual and critical-thinking social justice discourse, I had tuned out the birther nonsense and was thus not aware of Trump's bigoted earlier political rumblings. All that began to change as soon as Trump pompously descended his golden escalator to announce his candidacy and opened his mouth. And all I could say ever since then is -- wow, wow, wow, I had no idea he was such a monster. Let justice be served, on its own time, such that it is served fully!
@Yofisofi: You pretty much said it about impeachment. The froth the left-leaning news media got into after the "not worth it" comment only underscores the need for an elder stateswoman like Pelosi, someone who counsels restraint amidst a cacophony of partisan bloodlust. The impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton were a product of that same hyper-partisanship, and the theatrics of 1998 are still highly divisive. The same cannot be said for the Watergate scandal; almost every American today agrees that Nixon was a crook. As you say, be patient and let karma do its work.
I can't help adding though that this isn't just about Donald Trump. Ever since November 2016 I've been struck by the degree to which Trump mirrors everything that's toxic in contemporary American society. Just the fact that he was the star of a highly-rated reality TV show is thick with irony; the nation that pioneered television, mass entertainment, and modern artifice suddenly has a thoroughly made-for-TV president, and it ain't so pretty. The irony is heaped on even more when taking into account the fact that foreign actors aided Trump's ascent to office. One could make a hefty list of countries whose democratically-elected leaders were picked off during the Cold War by US-backed militants (or the US military itself) because said leaders were perceived by Washington as being too cozy with the Soviet Bloc. Then add in Trump's hunger for wealth, power, and shiny things (a bit like your average smartphone obsessed individual who is constantly updating his/her social media profiles), and you have the makings of what could be a teachable moment for all Americans.
I'll admit the notion that we "are getting what we deserve" is hard to maintain when considering people whose lives are at the sharp end of the Trump Administration: the Standing Rock Sioux, the family of Heather Heyer, the asylum seekers being held in detention. But one of the things that's kept me sane these past two years is looking to the executive branch and seeing how all of that ugliness currently on full display might reveal a thing or two about my own psyche that I was previously unwilling to acknowledge.
I had always known that he was a monster. Even now, most of his disgustingness is not talked about. The public doesn't get how disgusting he is and has always been. That he was elected president has always been difficult for me to process. That he has access to our most sentive information is a travesty. I can't believe we allowed him to even enter the race. Like so many others, his electoral college victory had me weeping for weeks. How could we have fallen so low? He doesn't represent any part of the American psyche. He is just a selfish criminal. He has no respect for anything at all. Nothing. No part of me is reflected in him or his administration. I am sorry to hear that people are still being conned into believing that he is what we deserve. He is not representative of Americans in any way, and if people want to pick up on the refracted images of him and fit them into their world-view, then they fool themselves or they are stateless mafia garbage like him. As for someone using him to make money on a reality tv show, just remember, all that glitters isn't gold. Read a book, instead.