The Revolution: Part 3

[dexeron]

Today's the day! Mr. Klayman goes to Washington! Larry Klayman, racist, birther, thief and lawyer so scummy that multiple judges have either sanctioned him or banned him from their courtrooms outright, is taking his show on the road. After "convicting" the President in his make-believe "citizen's grand jury" that he and the other guys in the clubhouse in his backyard thought up (in a scene that played out like a completely deranged episode of Nickelodeon's "The Backyardigans,") he is now taking his crew to our nation's capital to demand that the President resign and present himself for incarceration or something.

He predicts that millions will show up and join him, but much like the students in Paris in June of 1832, he'll probably only get dozens (hundreds, if he's lucky) of people to which the majority of the country will look at and say: "Meh."

Plus, those kids back then were revolting against legitimate tyranny, and not against the debunked claim that King Louis Philippe I was born in Kenya (though, hilariously, monarchs in those days often WERE born in other countries, what with the way that most of the ruling families were related, and as such had claims to each others' thrones - case in point, the foreign born kings of England who came to power in the post-Tudor world... but I digress.)

Yea, I don't expect the dude to actually show any self-awareness, or to stop his insanity just because his crusade fails today, but I will bask, for a moment or two, in the tiny amounts of schadenfreude that it creates.



Fun fact: the dude was actually on Alex Jones' show the other day. Doesn't that much crazy in one place create the risk of some kind of lunacy singularity? Forget the LHC at CERN: I'm more worried about the two of them annihilating us all in some kind of wharblegarble-induced antilogic blast.

[Despanan]

I was going to make this thread. But Dex's version is better.

[Samurai]

Some of us don't get the benefit of your crazy news. What happened?

[dexeron]

tl;dr version: a birther lawyer (whose antics have actually earned him judicial censure) convened a "citizens grand jury" to convict Obama of fraud regarding that debunked birth certificate nonsense. The grand jury had no legal standing; it was the equivalent of a mock trial, has no legal basis or authority, and it basically no more relevant than two guys standing at a water cooler and saying "I don't like this president, he should be impeached!" and thinking that their water cooler conversation somehow translates into a Constitutional or legal mandate.

So Klayman, the aforementioned lawyer, went to Washington to protest and demand Obama's resignation based on the "findings" of his "court" (he insists that Obama waived his right to a "jury trial" because he rightly refused to even dignify this nonsense with a response.) Klayman predicted that millions would rise up and join him and force Obama to see that the "people" wanted him gone, that the crowds would shut down the city, that the nation would finally see that those screaming the loudest about impeachment are really the majority and not just the lunatic fringe...

...and about a hundred people showed up with their signs, marched, spoke and went home. Just like any other protest, and just as was predicted by everyone else.

Klayman is also, by the way, a terrible racist, constantly demanding that Obama "get up off of his prayer rug" or to "put down the Quran" and that if ousted, he could "retire to a golf course in his beloved Tehran" and other such bigoted nonsense. That's in addition to the whole birther thing which was itself born in some pretty nasty racism.

Just a real winner who I'm happy to say is, for once, not representative of the majority of American politics - but who does have an effect on them (if one believes that the Overton Window is a real thing - which I do.) His specific craziness might be dismissed by the average person, but his tone and demeanor, and some of the things he claims do filter down through more reputable channels and end up being regurgitated, and that's why you can have otherwise well meaning people who were asking: "But then why DOESN'T he release his REAL birth certificate? We're not racist; we're just asking questions!" without realizing the genesis of the issue itself in some really hateful stuff.

Which is why pointing and laughing at this bozo is important.

Also, 10 cc of schadenfreude a day keeps the doctor away. But not too far away, because Saturday is the 50th anniversary special and all. :P

[dexeron]

Holy shit the nuclear option.

To folks not in the know: the Senate, under Harry Reid, just changed the rules when it comes to the approval of nominations by the President. Some explanation: technically, any person (say, a judge to a Federal bench) that the President nominates only needs a majority to approve his/her nomination to go forward - a simple up or down vote. However, because of the filibuster (the parliamentary procedure allowing members of a minority party to extend debate - an important part of checks and balances on power) this meant that in some cases, if the minority party wished, the nominee would actually require 60 votes out of the 100 Senators as opposed to merely 50 - 60 being the amount needed to bring "cloture," or the end of debate.

In most cases, this is not important: most nominees historically are granted a simple "up or down" vote, and move on. In certain cases, concerned members in the Senate will exercise this power, however, and it can be a useful tool, as a check on Executive power. This rule change eliminates the 60 vote rule for cloture, but only for nominations - and not for the nominations of Supreme Court Justices. It does not affect other types of legislative duties, or the passage of bills.

So, because the filibuster has been an important tool in the legislative arsenal for many, many years, and even through this rule change only affects the Senate's "advise and consent" role with regards to some kinds of Presidential nominees, I'm still not sure how to feel about this:

1. As I said before, the filibuster has been important, used by both sides, and I believe it serves a purpose as a check on the power of the majority (in line with our American philosophy of "Majority Rule/Minority Rights."

2. However, the amount of nominees blocked by the Senate during this administration is unprecedented. In American history, a total of 168 Presidential nominees have been filibustered. 82 of those were Obama nominees. 86 were under all the other presidents combined. In other words, almost half of all nomination filibusters were under Obama, an unprecedented level of obstruction.

Despite that, some might point out that many of Obama's nominees were eventually allowed through anyway, though even granting that, the procedural delay on their nomination process is still unprecedented.

And even understanding that, and even deploring that, I still am not sure what to feel about this rule change. The answer to a mold problem in your home is not to burn the house down. The answer to urban blight is not to drop a nuclear bomb on the city. I am left wondering whether this is truly a wise move, long-term. Is it a double-edged sword? When (not if, we live in a pendulum) the Republicans own a majority in the Senate, will the Democrats, today lauding this move, live to deplore it? Has this opened a metaphorical Pandora's Box, with unforeseen consequences we can't even predict? Or is my nostalgia for the way things have always been done coloring my perception of a change that was required to make our union "more perfect" - at least in terms of how it works procedurally?

[Rip]

Dude I'm still dealing with this shit over here

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt ... d-20975499

[dexeron]

Oh yea? My state's worse than yours! Nyaaaa!

http://gawker.com/black-man-arrested-do ... 1469590729

[Rip]

I was gonna counter with the fact that my state is setting the educational textbook standard for the majority of the next generation, and is doing so by arguing successfully to remove evolution because Intelligent Design can't be disproven, thus lowering even further the already shockingly inadequate education level of the most powerful country on the planet, but then I remembered that you live in Florida so yeh you win

[dexeron]

OK, never mind. Texas is worse.

http://gawker.com/three-teens-arrested- ... 1474787941

[Rip]