A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 573 of 725
Quote:It is NOT a Newsweek article. It is an article by Josh Blackman, professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. Did you see that word: HOUSTON? I operate out of Baytown, a half hour from downtown Houston, so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is. Short answer: a sneaky, smooth talking Right-to-Lifer Catholic. Blackman didn't mention what his motivation was when he wrote that opinion piece for Newsweek, but then Justice Alito didn't mention he was a Right-to-Lifer Catholic who has been strongly motivated for many decades to attack abortion before he wrote the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v Wade in Texas. That is how the law will work in the future when legal decisions are based on the judge's religion and political party requests secretly made over the telephone, rather than on law, all while the judge refuses to expose his real motivation, but keeps that hidden behind legal gobbledygook and prestidigitation.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Read the Newsweek article.
I'm done with you.
https://www.stcl.edu/about-us/faculty/josh-blackman/
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/josh-blackman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Blackman
Blackman has pointed out in articles that laws declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court do not get removed from the law books until after the Texas legislature removes the law. The Texas Heartbeat Act makes the same point about Texas anti-abortion laws written before Roe v Wade. All of those old laws are still on the books, waiting for a change to anti-abortion personnel on the Supreme Court. Maybe Blackman wrote the Texas Heartbeat Act, which would explain why he is defending it.
https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
...so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is.
No you didn't.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:6ix, a better argument you could use would be to say that you know for certain that Blackman and Justice Alito are not Catholics, are not Right-to-Lifers, that Blackman did not help draft the Texas Anti-abortion Law, that both these lawyers are only selflessly following the Constitution. Such bullshit you could claim to be true, 6ix. But back in reality, Blackman and Alito are legal legerdemain practitioners who bent the law to get the anti-abortion religion they want.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
...so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is.
No you didn't.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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No they didn't.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:"The most likely way that you can affect the court and how they decide cases is by who's on the court," Jim Bopp, who has served as the National Right to Life Committee's chief lawyer since 1978.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No they didn't.
Trump broke political norms by promising justices who would "automatically" overturn Supreme Court abortion precedent, with explicit commitments that were a far cry from the coyness and subtle hints that past Republican candidates would invoke to describe their approach to judicial nominations. Ultimately President Trump was able to confirm three justices. Trump's justices allowed Texas this week to implement a ban on abortion.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/04/politics/abortion-legal-strategy-roe-v-
wade-texas-abortion-ban/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Democrats Who Joined Republicans to Increase Military Budget Have Strong Defense Ties
by Sara Sirota https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/democrats-defense-industry-militar
y-budget/
Just two days after the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan, more than a dozen Democrats with strong ties to the military establishment defied President Joe Biden and voted to add nearly $24 billion to the defense budget for fiscal year 2022.
On Wednesday, 14 Democrats joined 28 Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to adopt an amendment from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., to the fiscal year 2022 defense authorization bill that would boost Biden’s $715 billion spending proposal to $738.9 billion. The move follows the Senate Armed Services Committee’s vote to similarly raise the top line to more than $740 billion in its July markup of the bill.
The 14 House Democrats to support the defense spending were Reps. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island; Joe Courtney of Connecticut; Jared Golden of Maine; Elaine Luria of Virginia; Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey; Stephanie Murphy of Florida; Anthony Brown of Maryland; Filemon Vela of Texas; Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Salud Carbajal of California; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; Kai Kahele of Hawaii; Marc Veasey of Texas; and Steven Horsford of Nevada.
The decision by these lawmakers to approve the higher budget is not necessarily shocking in a political environment in which the military’s leaders demand an annual budget growth of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. Biden’s $715 billion proposal was a 1.5 percent nonadjusted increase above this year’s spending level.
One congressional staffer, who was not permitted to speak on the record, said in an email, “many Dems, especially when serving [on the House Armed Services Committee] are reluctant to look ‘soft on defense’ by opposing increases to the defense budget, so in some ways it’s surprising the majority of Dems still voted against the topline increase.” (Seventeen Democrats voted against Rogers’s amendment, not enough to prevent its inclusion in the bill.)
Many of the Democrats who voted for the $24 billion increase have close ties to the defense establishment. Their districts are home to job-promoting manufacturing sites and military bases, and much of the extra funding will go directly to projects at those locations. Many of the Democrats have also received generous campaign donations from contractors. In fact, Federal Election Commission data shows that in the first six months of this year, the 14 Democrats collectively received at least $135,000 from PACs representing the country’s top 10 defense vendors: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, L3Harris, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Leidos, Honeywell, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
A closer look reveals potentially strong incentives for those Democrats to support an increase in defense spending:
By voting for the $24 billion raise, Courtney, chair of the seapower and projection forces subcommittee, secured more than $560 million for an extra Virginia-class submarine for the Navy. The submarine is built in Courtney’s district at General Dynamics Electric Boat’s Groton shipyard. The contractor’s PAC was his largest donor in the 2020 congressional election, and it gave him $3,000 during the first half of this year. He got at least another $10,500 from other major defense contractors, including $5,000 from Northrop Grumman’s PAC.
General Dynamics’ PAC was also the largest donor in the 2020 election cycle to Langevin, chair of the emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee. Its Electric Boat subsidiary also has a manufacturing site in his state, employing Rhode Islanders to help produce the Navy’s submarines, including the Virginia-class one. Langevin received at least $14,500 from major defense contractors during the first six months of this year, including $4,500 from General Dynamics’ PAC.
By voting for the budget increase, Golden nabbed more than $1.6 billion for Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are
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What’s up with Republicans and Abortion?
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without reimagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn. -- Methodist Pastor David Barnhart
More at https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/20/a-methodist-pastor-is-b
rilliantly-calling-out-the-pro-life-crowds-hypocrisy/
Methodist Pastor David Barnhart also wrote: If they actually cared about abortion…
If Alabama politicians and preachers really cared about preventing abortion, we’d have comprehensive, medically accurate sex education in schools. This new bill criminalizing abortion is entirely about controlling sexual behavior and taking away bodily autonomy.
A few years ago, some conservative clergy (all men) proposed a resolution in our local denominational body about defunding Planned Parenthood. The resolution was tabled until we could talk through it. I offered to meet with its authors to see if we could craft a resolution we could agree on.
None of them showed up for the first meeting.
Since they chose not to participate, those of us who did show up kept the goal of the original resolution—reducing or preventing abortion—but chose to focus on a policy that actually applied to our state: comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education in schools.
That got their attention. They showed up to the second meeting to oppose this change. They would not even consider a resolution that included comprehensive sex education. Abstinence was the only choice. The only compromise we reached was withdrawing the resolution.
I asked if any of the authors had met with the people at Planned Parenthood whose jobs they were trying to defund. They had not. I offered to facilitate a meeting between representatives of Planned Parenthood and the clergy who drafted the resolution. They declined.
I don’t know how they could have made it any clearer: They didn’t care about preventing abortion. Nor did they care about even hearing from the other side.
Alabama politicians likewise have made their goals and values clear: In addition to rejecting exceptions in cases of rape or incest, they are entertaining a bill which makes false accusation of rape a felony. This is intended to intimidate women in light of the #metoo movement. All of these policies taken together are about subjugating women.
I support the right to an abortion, and see religious justification for restricting that right as a failure of empathy and imagination. Ethics requires us to imagine situations in which we have to apply our norms or policies—to put ourselves in someone else’s place, to “do to others as you would have them do to you.” If we create a rule or law, we have to imagine what it would be like to be subject to it.
I believe there are people of good faith who disagree with me about public policy, and are sincere in their desire to reduce or prevent abortion. I just haven’t met many yet.
https://davebarnhart.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/if-they-actually-cared-a
bout-abortion/
The Joss W
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By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".
You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:Nobody is forcing you to work, 6ix, but there are consequences involving money. Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated, but there are consequences so do what you are going to do, 6ix, but don't expect your ex-employers, stepparent, ex-girlfriends, ex-whatevers to send you money or sneak you into places only the vaccinated go. There are consequence for you acting as you do.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".
You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Nobody is forcing you to work, 6ix, but there are consequences involving money. Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated, but there are consequences so do what you are going to do, 6ix, but don't expect your ex-employers, stepparent, ex-girlfriends, ex-whatevers to send you money or sneak you into places only the vaccinated go. There are consequence for you acting as you do.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".
You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.
Taking away somebody's ability to make money to live is no different than an actual mandate. Period.
I'm not worried about me. I can wait this out much longer than it will be in the news, replaced by the next big thing. I'm not now or ever getting the vaccination.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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