Week of April 22nd, Earth Day 🌎

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 8:26:21 GMT -6 elle said:

Apr 25, 2024 8:09:19 GMT -6 downwarddog said:

Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was overturned.

The Supreme Court is going to let women die for the fun of it.

Trump is going to get immunity and be King.

I'm in a dark place today. Sorry.

I'm feeling quite down, to put it mildly, these days too.

I don't think SCOTUS will give Trump full immunity, to do so would impact their power in government, but they will definitely make a decision that delays things further.

Video of police forcibly breaking up legal, peaceful protests yesterday felt very dystopian

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 7:24:09 GMT -6 overboard said:

Apr 24, 2024 7:46:53 GMT -6 notblanche said:

Can we talk about how incredible these young people are with their antiwar protests?? I saw a video yesterday of NYU faculty forming a chain to protect student protestors and couldn't contain myself. Students at the University of Pittsburgh joined in yesterday as well.

Gift link:
www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/04/23/map-student-protests-arrests-universities-us/

Yes! I’m also so proud of the students at UT. Many were arrested and assaulted. Of course they’re being called pro Hamas. Not so shockingly, Abbott and Patrick are all over it.

I am glad to see some reporters starting to do a better job distinguishing between actual students advocating for the people of Palestine and Area Man antisemites who turn up in or near these protests because they know they will get on tv

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 6:59:01 GMT -6 taconight said:

Apr 24, 2024 18:04:38 GMT -6 cnf said:

My gosh, he really never learns.

I think he has learned, but the lesson he learned over the past few decades was that he can get away with shady and illegal stuff and never face any consequences . I’m not really hopeful that he’ll face any now, either.

A few minutes ago, Justice Brown Jackson actually said to his lawyer that every single other person who has held that office complied the law bc they understood they weren't above it (except Nixon, necessitating the pardon)

[elle]

Apr 25, 2024 8:30:45 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Apr 25, 2024 8:26:21 GMT -6 elle said:

I'm feeling quite down, to put it mildly, these days too.

I don't think SCOTUS will give Trump full immunity, to do so would impact their power in government, but they will definitely make a decision that delays things further.

Video of police forcibly breaking up legal, peaceful protests yesterday felt very dystopian

It's extra upsetting because it feels like our government (and others) are falling into a bunch of traps set to purposefully destabilize democracies around the world. I really do not want to witness the rise of fascism and authoritarianism.

[elle]

Oh ffs.

[elle]

Although I suppose that would mean Biden could remain in office, regardless of the outcome of this year's election. 🤔

[cnf]

Apr 25, 2024 8:26:21 GMT -6 elle said:

Apr 25, 2024 8:09:19 GMT -6 downwarddog said:

Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was overturned.

The Supreme Court is going to let women die for the fun of it.

Trump is going to get immunity and be King.

I'm in a dark place today. Sorry.

I'm feeling quite down, to put it mildly, these days too.

I don't think SCOTUS will give Trump full immunity, to do so would impact their power in government, but they will definitely make a decision that delays things further.

If SCOTUS gives him full immunity, that would mean that any president moving forward also gets full immunity and therefore can do fuck all whatever they want without consequences or recourse, yes? I'd like to think they're smarter than to let that precedent exist, but I also have zero faith.

[elle]

[dc2london]

These are some wild arguments Sauer is making.
ACB asked, if impeachment is the only remedy, what happens if crimes aren't uncovered until after he leaves office.
Sauer said that the founders accepted that some crimes are the cost of doing business 😒😒😒😒😒

It is honestly bonkers bananas that this case is even being heard

[coffeecake]

Apr 25, 2024 8:50:06 GMT -6 cnf said:

Apr 25, 2024 8:26:21 GMT -6 elle said:

I'm feeling quite down, to put it mildly, these days too.

I don't think SCOTUS will give Trump full immunity, to do so would impact their power in government, but they will definitely make a decision that delays things further.

If SCOTUS gives him full immunity, that would mean that any president moving forward also gets full immunity and therefore can do fuck all whatever they want without consequences or recourse, yes? I'd like to think they're smarter than to let that precedent exist, but I also have zero faith.

Their plan is continue rigging elections so their candidates always win, so I think they’re fine with it.

[origami]

It’s so hard to not give in to the cynicism but we just have to hang on a little while longer.

To do my part, here’s some good news: scientists figured out how to fix a transmitter from 15 billion miles away and reconnect voyager. Progress is amazing.

www.goodnewsnetwork.org/hello-voyager-celebrated-spacecraft-is-once-again-transmitting-after-nasa-repair-from-15-billion-miles-away/

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 8:50:06 GMT -6 cnf said:

Apr 25, 2024 8:26:21 GMT -6 elle said:

I'm feeling quite down, to put it mildly, these days too.

I don't think SCOTUS will give Trump full immunity, to do so would impact their power in government, but they will definitely make a decision that delays things further.

If SCOTUS gives him full immunity, that would mean that any president moving forward also gets full immunity and therefore can do fuck all whatever they want without consequences or recourse, yes? I'd like to think they're smarter than to let that precedent exist, but I also have zero faith.

This is something KBJ keeps coming back to

[dc2london]

Alito is very concerned that criminal trials would be time comsuming and expensive for former presidents 🙄

[elle]

*screams and tears out hair*

[downwarddog]

Apr 25, 2024 9:16:44 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Alito is very concerned that criminal trials would be time comsuming and expensive for former presidents 🙄

Really just the one former president. 

[cnf]

Apr 25, 2024 9:16:44 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Alito is very concerned that criminal trials would be time comsuming and expensive for former presidents 🙄

Oh noes. He's an octogenarian "billionaire". He should have nothing but time and money.

God, if he had been convicted during one of his multiple impeachments we wouldn't even be here right now!

[babybean]

Apr 24, 2024 14:28:57 GMT -6 geekygirly said:

Apr 24, 2024 7:46:53 GMT -6 notblanche said:

Can we talk about how incredible these young people are with their antiwar protests?? I saw a video yesterday of NYU faculty forming a chain to protect student protestors and couldn't contain myself. Students at the University of Pittsburgh joined in yesterday as well.

Gift link:
www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/04/23/map-student-protests-arrests-universities-us/

These students have a right to protest - to criticize governmental policies and to ask for peace. But I've also heard some concerning things that make some of these protestors seem not necessarily just anti-war but anti-Israel existence and in some cases antisemitic. Particularly at Columbia, there have been Jewish students targeted with verbal and physical harassment, and Jewish students saying they feel unsafe on campus. (A rabbi there suggested Jewish students leave and finish the year remotely because of safety concerns.) I have Jewish friends who have high schoolers who are rethinking college applications because they are worried their kids won't be safe. I don't think this should be ignored either. 

I felt like this was a balanced take: 
nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-protest-anti-semitism-campus-israel-jewish-students-justice-palestine.html

I have lots of thoughts and don’t want to clog up the thread so I used a spoiler lol. Sorry in advance. It’s okay if it’s tl;dr.

SPOILER: Click to show

(First and foremost, everyone deserves to feel and be safe. I actively fight against both anti-semitism and anti-Arab rhetoric.)

Some thoughts on the article:
Anti-Zionist doesn’t mean anti-Jewish. Most Zionists are Christian. Anti-Israel rhetoric isn’t inherently anti-Jewish either. As Israel loves to claim, 21% of the population is Arab and non-Jews were not spared on October 7th. Intifada literally means ‘uprising’. I understand the history of the first and second Intifada’s but notice that the non-violent aspects of them are left out entirely. Why don’t we talk about the walkouts and peaceful protests (often women led)? Why do we never discuss Israel’s violence and policies that escalated things? Why don’t we discuss the death tolls? Spoiler alert: many more Palestinians died.

Everything pro-Palestinians say and do is labelled as anti-semitic. There’s no listening, nuance, context, empathy. Something is clearly awry if every call to action and every form of resistance, peaceful or otherwise, is labelled as hate crimes/speech. Even when Israel’s crimes are mentioned, it’s done so passively or in a victimized way of “what else could we do?!”. Frankly, I find it sick.

There’s been a number of faked anti-Semitic hate crimes recently. If I were to hone in on these and say it represents all Jewish people that would be ignorant, right? So why is this same understanding never extended to pro-Palestinians? The vast majority are non-violent and much of the violence in these campuses is via police against the protestors. A few of the incidents mentioned in the article are not even confirmed. (Not saying they didn’t happen, but ‘agent provocateur’ is being thrown around, which has been proven before, and I’m seeing the actions being called out by Pro-Palestinians). Hate crimes are happening, but to act like they are the norm is dangerous. I’m tired of Palestinians being framed as barbaric, violent animals and Israeli’s as innocent, perpetual victims.

To be clear, I’ve been arguing against anti-Semitic bullshit for forever. There’s a lot of ignorance about Jewish history and culture. I’m also not so pro-Palestinian that I would deny reality. I have no problem acknowledging Arab conquest or mistakes/atrocities made before, during and after the establishment of Israel. The blind loyalty expected from the Pro-Israel camp is alarming though. I’m tired of hearing “where are the feminists” while ignoring the plight of Palestinian women. I’m tired of folks being lambasted for not speaking out for the hostages while they remain silent about Gazans unless it suits their cause. There is a strange hyper focus on highlighting Israeli/Jewish pain while minimizing Palestinian suffering and I refuse to co-sign it.

Hate crimes are universally wrong and inexcusable. I feel a lot of people aren’t as well educated on the conflict and the ‘opposing’ side as they think. A western lense being applied to a ME conflict is pompous and exhausting a lot of the time.

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 9:28:21 GMT -6 cnf said:

Apr 25, 2024 9:16:44 GMT -6 dc2london said:

Alito is very concerned that criminal trials would be time comsuming and expensive for former presidents 🙄

Oh noes. He's an octogenarian "billionaire". He should have nothing but time and money.

God, if he had been convicted during one of his multiple impeachments we wouldn't even be here right now!

This is allllllllll Mitch's fault

[goldenbird]

I hate everything right now. I'm so fucking nervous about the election and just *all this*, it feels like a crossover year of 2016 and 2020 mixing together and it's too much.

[trueblue]

Apr 25, 2024 8:09:19 GMT -6 downwarddog said:

Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was overturned.

The Supreme Court is going to let women die for the fun of it.

Trump is going to get immunity and be King.

I'm in a dark place today. Sorry.

+1.

[elle]

Some positive judicial news:

[geekygirly]

Apr 25, 2024 9:34:38 GMT -6 babybean said:

I have lots of thoughts and don’t want to clog up the thread so I used a spoiler lol. Sorry in advance. It’s okay if it’s tl;dr.

SPOILER: Click to show

<snip>

I appreciate you be wiling to engage on this topic. I'm spoilering my wall of text as well. 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}I agree that not everything "pro-Palestians" do is antisemitic. Asking for a ceasefire, for peace, for an end to the suffering, for their own state (that doesn't involve obliterating Israel) isn't antisemitic. I don't believe all Palestinians are barbaric or violent, nor do I believe all Israelis (for example, the West bank settlers) are innocent.



As far as anti-Zionism being antisemitic, I don't believe that all anti-Zionists hate or discriminate against Jews (there are Jewish anti-Zionists as well). So from that sense one could argue it isn't antisemitic. However, the definition of Zionism (per my understanding from Jewish friends) is that Jews should have a national homeland within the original territory of the Kingdoms of Israel/Judah (that doesn't necessarily mean all of the territory). Early Zionism didn't even conceive of this as a country in which they ruled, but just somewhere they could live in peace with equal rights (the idea of dividing the land came about, to my understanding, when the Arabs at the time would not agree to Jews having equal rights). There are indeed a lot of Christian "Zionists" who see the establishment of Israel as necessary to bring about the return of Christ and don't give a hoot about Jews (imo). But the majority of Jews are Zionists (according to the earlier definition) as well. Jewish identity and religion is deeply tied into Israel. Most Jews consider themselves indigenous to Israel. There are religious practices that can only be completed in Israel. The Jewish calendar is based on the agricultural cycle in the area. The Passover seder ends with "Next year in Jerusalem." So when Jews hear someone being "anti-Zionist," it feels like being against a deep part of their identity, culture, and religion. It also cannot be discounted that Hamas often refers to Israel as the "zionist entity" in an attempt to discredit it (and zionist has in the past been used as code to make it easier to discriminate against Jews in general in various countries.) 



I agree that "intifada" technically means "uprising," but for many Jews, it is intrinsically linked to painful memories of suffering and death for their people. I feel like if Jews were POC (some are but not the entire group), we wouldn't be policing what they could consider discriminatory and hurtful, but yet we do police it for Jews because we consider them "white." (I agree that most Jews in the US have white privilege and benefit from that, but they are still a minority group.)



I don't attribute the crimes of Hamas to all Palestinians. Many innocent Palestinians have died. (I do believe that Hamas strategically ingrains itself in the civilian population in order to maximize civilian casualties to garner international sympathy, but that is not the fault of innocent civilians.) As far as death tolls, I feel like I read about them every day. I also feel like everything the Gazan leadership says is taken at face value but everything the Israeli leadership says is questioned (for my part, I don't trust Hamas or Netanyahu, but I believe both should be subject to equal scrutiny). Same goes with the "pro-Palestinian" camp and "pro-Israel" camp in the US. In my opinion, we shouldn't take the "these are peaceful protests" at their word while also ignoring the word of Jewish students that it isn't always peaceful. Based on history, I absolutely believe there has been police brutality of peaceful protestors and that isn't okay. I've also read pieces from professors who say that the protest chants are so loud that it is difficult to drown out during class (and again we come back to some of those chants like "intifada" and "from the river to the sea" having negative connotations for Jews. If the chant was something like "All lives matter" I don't think we would tell POC to not let it bother them so much.) As far as "where are the feminists," I feel that was specifically in relation to not calling out (or taking a long time to) the sexual crimes that were committed on October 7th (saying they weren't verified while they typically say to believe all women). I've haven't personally seen anyone say they shouldn't also speak out against the plight of Palestinians and would disagree with them if they did.



Something I think we need to remember is that the holocaust wasn't that long ago - there are still survivors alive today. And it wasn't something that happened quickly, it was a slow buildup of anti-Jewish sentiment. So when Jews see the protests here and hear about Jewish students being harassed or feeling unsafe, it brings up that collective trauma - whether fairly or unfairly. The article I shared only brings up a few of the incidents I've read about (I've read of a lot more on Instagram but I didn't want to bring that up here because Instagram isn't necessarily a reliable source, but again I also don't believe it should be completely discounted out of hand. Things from TikTok have been shared here which I also don't believe is a reliable source. ETA here is one article I found: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/columbia-university-protests-palestine/678159/)



I think most Jews (definitely the ones I know) despise Netanyahu, are horrified and pained at the images coming out of Gaza, and want peace. But they also want safety. The fact that Hamas is still holding hostages complicates matters - they need to be freed, but that doesn't mean innocent people deserve suffering, and I don't think what Netanyahu is doing at this point is helping to get them back. As an article I read recently said, I believed that Biden would be able to reign in Netanyahu, I was even hopeful of the chance of a broader peace, but the longer this goes on that doesn't seem to be the case.

(For the record, I hate we even need to discuss this as "pro-Palestinian" vs. "pro-Israel." Can't we just have a "pro-peace, a two-state solution, and safety for both peoples" camp?)

I know you might not agree with everything I said, and that's fine. Thanks again for sharing your perspective in a constructive way. If you want to engage further I'm happy to, or if not that's fine too.  

[enchanted]

How in the fuck are we at a place where an attorney can argue before SCOTUS that a president should be immune and able to assassinate a political opponent and we have doubt SCOTUS will rule against that?

Like there shouldn't be the slightest doubt and yet, here we are.


Fuck this shit.

[byjove]

This seems major

[elle]

He is so loathesome.

[Eagles]

Apr 25, 2024 15:26:21 GMT -6 enchanted said:

How in the fuck are we at a place where an attorney can argue before SCOTUS that a president should be immune and able to assassinate a political opponent and we have doubt SCOTUS will rule against that?

Like there shouldn't be the slightest doubt and yet, here we are.


Fuck this shit.

The short answer is Mitch McConnell. The longer answer is racists, misogynists, Bernie Bros of all genders, right wingers, Christian nationalists, Fox News, Jim Comey's letter, HRC's short sighted campaign strategy in battleground states, and the electoral college.

[enchanted]

Apr 25, 2024 16:42:39 GMT -6 Eagles said:

Apr 25, 2024 15:26:21 GMT -6 enchanted said:

How in the fuck are we at a place where an attorney can argue before SCOTUS that a president should be immune and able to assassinate a political opponent and we have doubt SCOTUS will rule against that?

Like there shouldn't be the slightest doubt and yet, here we are.


Fuck this shit.

The short answer is Mitch McConnell. The longer answer is racists, misogynists, Bernie Bros of all genders, right wingers, Christian nationalists, Fox News, Jim Comey's letter, HRC's short sighted campaign strategy in battleground states, and the electoral college.

I know. Still...fuck this shit.

I have a lot of things I'll die mad about, but Mitch and Lindsey over Garland and Biden over Clarence are two at the top of my list.

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 16:56:22 GMT -6 enchanted said:

Apr 25, 2024 16:42:39 GMT -6 Eagles said:

The short answer is Mitch McConnell. The longer answer is racists, misogynists, Bernie Bros of all genders, right wingers, Christian nationalists, Fox News, Jim Comey's letter, HRC's short sighted campaign strategy in battleground states, and the electoral college.

I know. Still...fuck this shit.

I have a lot of things I'll die mad about, but Mitch and Lindsey over Garland and Biden over Clarence are two at the top of my list.

Don't forget Mitch abandoning the imaginary rule he used against Garland to install ACB

[dc2london]

Apr 25, 2024 15:26:21 GMT -6 enchanted said:

How in the fuck are we at a place where an attorney can argue before SCOTUS that a president should be immune and able to assassinate a political opponent and we have doubt SCOTUS will rule against that?

Like there shouldn't be the slightest doubt and yet, here we are.


Fuck this shit.

The Supreme Court is nakedly partisan. Clarence Thomas absolutely should not be a part of this case. It's so infuriating.

[byjove]