The Defining Issue of 2024
- Thread starter ATeam
- Start date
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
That is not bigoted or do you not understand that Catholic religion believes in the right to live.
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
I am babtist by religion yet I know a few other religions....better to know your fellow man than to offend him because you disrespect his religion.
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
The Democrats have moved so far to the left that they consider all Republicans to be far right extremist....and it's the people in the middle of that divide that are getting hurt.
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
And sadly I forsee a civil war.
Which is exactly what you did with your uncalled for Catholic comment.
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
And yet you are the one calling me names.
danthewolf00
Veteran Expediter
The catholic church believes in the right to life, that you cannot divorce, and that the death penalty is wrong.
State Houses Starting to Flip on Abortion Views
"After losing hundreds of state legislative seats nationwide in the 2010s, Democrats began reversing the trend in 2022. Backlash to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, among other things, fueled successful campaigns to flip state houses in places like Michigan and Minnesota." (Source)
"After losing hundreds of state legislative seats nationwide in the 2010s, Democrats began reversing the trend in 2022. Backlash to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, among other things, fueled successful campaigns to flip state houses in places like Michigan and Minnesota." (Source)
If the House can't make expulsions stick they need to change the legislation that controls rules violations and the enforcement of the consequent penalties. They should do it now while they have super majorities in both houses. The idea that their rules enforcement can be overruled or nullified by some county commission is absurd. This would actually benefit both parties.
It is something to think about.
I doubt that the drafters of the original state constitution contemplated the scenario we see played out today. Can you see them asking in one of their document drafting meetings, "what if the House expels a member on a party line vote and that member's local jurisdiction sends that expelled member right back?"
On the other hand, maybe they did think that through, and maybe they thought it very important that if a local jurisdiction wants to appoint the person who was just expelled to temporarily fill that seat, the wishes of that local body that represents that district's voters should be respected. Maybe they intended that in such matters, the local jurisdictions have that power. Such power could serve as a check against an oppressive super-majority, they may have reasoned.
I can see both sides. Which is more important, the ability of the people to choose their representatives, or the ability of the House to control its members?
The house to control members, obviously. Otherwise there is no point having or convening the house as they can be an unruly and uncontrolled mob out on the street just as well as they can in the uncontrolled house.
That tracks if you assume the House leadership is always right. But when an entity of any kind is perceived to be wrong and perceived to be abusing its power, people tend to rebel. That's what happened in the American Revolution and in many subsequent events when people took to the streets.
And it was not that bad in the Tennessee House case. Rules of decorum were violated, yes. The gallery was packed and unruly, yes. People were protesting in the streets and inside the capitol building, yes. But in fact, the House did not cease to function. In short order, the representatives were back in the chamber and conducting business.
There were no arrests, fires, property damage, injuries, fights or other such things. This was a loud and temporarily disruptive demonstration, not a riot, and not something that disrupted the House for long. Had it been a non-violent sit-in that kept the House from doing business, arrests would have happened. But there were no arrests because the House was not significantly disrupted for long.
I presume the speaker always had the power to clear the gallery of any and all people who were disrupting House proceedings. I know in Washington, it happens quite often that one or more people are disruptive in the gallery. When that happens, the committee or House or Senate members simply pause for a moment as officers remove the disruptive people at the order of the chair.
I don't know why TN House Speaker Cameron Sexton did not order the gallery cleared. It may be because the House was in recess the entire time the bullhorn protest went on, except for a very short time when the House was in session. I don't know. I do know he had the power to clear the gallery but he did not do so.
Why the Abortion Issue is Problematic for Republicans
The more Republicans in power use their power to force abortion restrictions on the American people -- restrictions that are not wanted by the majority of general election voters -- the more likely it becomes those Republicans will lose whatever seats they are campaigning to win. Driven by genuinely held core convictions, anti-abortion hardliners who control the Republican Party will never nominate a presidential candidate who maintains a moderate or liberal position on abortion. And therein lies the problem. Republicans are trapped in an irrevocable policy dilemma of their own making.
This AP article sums things up nicely. Excerpts:
"Allies for leading presidential candidates concede that their hardline anti-abortion policies may be popular with the conservatives who decide primary elections, but they could ultimately alienate the broader set of voters they need to win the presidency."
"Recent electoral results suggest that voters aren’t pleased."
"Republicans have suffered painful losses in recent weeks and months across Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada and even deep-red Kansas in elections that focused, at least in part, on abortion. Last week in Wisconsin, an anti-abortion candidate for the state Supreme Court was trounced by 11 points in a state President Joe Biden carried by less than 1 point."
"While popular with Republican primary voters, public polling consistently shows that the broader collection of voters who decide general elections believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases."
apnews.com
The more Republicans in power use their power to force abortion restrictions on the American people -- restrictions that are not wanted by the majority of general election voters -- the more likely it becomes those Republicans will lose whatever seats they are campaigning to win. Driven by genuinely held core convictions, anti-abortion hardliners who control the Republican Party will never nominate a presidential candidate who maintains a moderate or liberal position on abortion. And therein lies the problem. Republicans are trapped in an irrevocable policy dilemma of their own making.
This AP article sums things up nicely. Excerpts:
"Allies for leading presidential candidates concede that their hardline anti-abortion policies may be popular with the conservatives who decide primary elections, but they could ultimately alienate the broader set of voters they need to win the presidency."
"Recent electoral results suggest that voters aren’t pleased."
"Republicans have suffered painful losses in recent weeks and months across Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada and even deep-red Kansas in elections that focused, at least in part, on abortion. Last week in Wisconsin, an anti-abortion candidate for the state Supreme Court was trounced by 11 points in a state President Joe Biden carried by less than 1 point."
"While popular with Republican primary voters, public polling consistently shows that the broader collection of voters who decide general elections believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases."
Abortion bans raise fears inside GOP about backlash in 2024
Leading Republicans are struggling to navigate the politics of abortion as they concede — publicly and privately — that the GOP’s anti-abortion policies are unpopular with the very voters they need to win the presidency. But in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a top Republican presidential prospect...
apnews.com
Supreme Court Protects Access to Abortion Pill
The title of this post is the CNN headline about this development. Many in the media are hailing this as a great victory for Biden and the Democrats. And it is interesting to note that this conservative court took this action, with all three Trump-appointed justices voting in favor of the ruling.
But I'm thinking this is an even greater victory for the Republicans. In this thread, I have been writing how the extreme right-wing Republicans who have the power to do so, seemingly can't help themselves from adopting one abortion restriction after another, putting abortion out of reach of more and more people, and putting their party out of contention by alienating Republican candidates from the general electorate.
Had the US Supreme Court ruled the other way, and made it such that the abortion pill would be banned nationwide, millions of women and additional millions of men would have been spurred to rise into active political participation to get back the rights they once took for granted. In today's ruling the Court saved the Republican Party from a blue wave the likes of which they have never seen before.
They may yet see such a wave if they continue to saddle the electorate with restrictions they do not want. But today, Republicans should thank the court for nipping in the bud the questionable lower court ruling which would have imposed a nationwide abortion-pill ban. and thereby neutralizing the voter outrage that could very well have coalesced into a powerful anti-Republican movement.
The title of this post is the CNN headline about this development. Many in the media are hailing this as a great victory for Biden and the Democrats. And it is interesting to note that this conservative court took this action, with all three Trump-appointed justices voting in favor of the ruling.
But I'm thinking this is an even greater victory for the Republicans. In this thread, I have been writing how the extreme right-wing Republicans who have the power to do so, seemingly can't help themselves from adopting one abortion restriction after another, putting abortion out of reach of more and more people, and putting their party out of contention by alienating Republican candidates from the general electorate.
Had the US Supreme Court ruled the other way, and made it such that the abortion pill would be banned nationwide, millions of women and additional millions of men would have been spurred to rise into active political participation to get back the rights they once took for granted. In today's ruling the Court saved the Republican Party from a blue wave the likes of which they have never seen before.
They may yet see such a wave if they continue to saddle the electorate with restrictions they do not want. But today, Republicans should thank the court for nipping in the bud the questionable lower court ruling which would have imposed a nationwide abortion-pill ban. and thereby neutralizing the voter outrage that could very well have coalesced into a powerful anti-Republican movement.
Republicans in South Carolina and Nebraska are Wising Up
These Republican legislators may have figured out that the single-best way to mobilize millions of voters against them is to saddle them with abortion restrictions they do not want.
www.nytimes.com
These Republican legislators may have figured out that the single-best way to mobilize millions of voters against them is to saddle them with abortion restrictions they do not want.
Abortion Bans Fail in South Carolina and Nebraska (Published 2023)
The conservative state legislatures couldn’t muster enough votes to pass bills that would have severely restricted the procedure.
