What I'm afraid of is that we are now looking at the "new normal" in how things function.

And the Dems can either play the same game, hope that the craziness that is the current GOP eventually flames out with a huge collapse at the polls or try and adapt some middle ground where all they end up doing is hoping for an occasional nugget of cooperation from the GOP.

None of these is really a viable strategy, though, for combating this changed landscape.  Somehow, hoping that the voters eventually tire of the Republican scorched earth tactics seems like a pretty thin thread of hope.

The Democrats, if they wish to get anything done, are going to have to find a way to fight the GOP without looking like they are just part of the whole problem.  And with the media always playing the "both parties are equally to blame" card, it is going to be a tough sell to overcome that narrative. Down the road, if they adopt the  "behaving like a minority should" attitude once again it will most certainly get the Democrats steamrolled when they find themselves in the minority.  I am sure that is exactly what the GOP hopes will happen.  And the Village will most certainly expect the Dems to play along.  Because that is what Democrats are supposed to do in the Village world.

...royally pi$$ed off America with a conservative ruling. The classic example of this would be reversing Roe v Wade. The recent campaign finance decision could have similar effects.

One of the biggest mistakes the liberals have made and continue to make is accepting the Republican frame of "judicial activism" for Brown and Roe, and then defending judicial activism. Now, we have Bush v. Gore and Citizen's United - there's your judicial activism. The conservative arguments against it were always correct, but dishonestly made given their own intentions. The liberal response was to assume good faith and take the other side, wrongly defending judicial activism.

The court had to take up abortion because two states - New York and California - had already legalized it, which made the underlying principles incoherent on a nationwide basis. One can hold that a fetus is part of a woman's body or a human being, but to say it is a human being in Georgia but a body part in New York is absurd. A pregnant woman would in some technical sense be "ending a life" just by entering New York. This doesn't mean the Court had to decide the matter the way it did, but some national standard had to be determined, and either standard would have been as "activist" as the other, as some states were going to have to change in either case.

As for Brown, it was a reversion of Plessy, a previous decision. If you accept Plessy, then, you accept that the question of segregation in education was a legitimate one for the Court to address. And the key finding, as I understand it, is that equality could not be obtained under segregation. One can contest this and hold that it is abstractly possible (the court did have to argue that it could not be equal, rather than merely that it was not equal, as the latter could admit of remedies short of ending segregation, and, as Stevens reminds us re Citizens United, the Court is supposed to seek the narrowest ruling), though I think a stronger abstract argument for the Court's position could be made today with network theory and such, then the Court actually made. But, at bottom, the assertion behind Brown is a finding of fact. True or false - and I think it is true, and that a better theoretical case could be made today with social network theory and such than could be made in the 50's - findings of fact are not judicial activism. There is no way the Court can function without making assertions about what is and is not true, and it determined that the premise of Plessy - that equality could exist under segregation - was false.

Meh.

Obama came in so strong and the GOP left so weak ann looking inept that I don't think the GOP had any alternative but to say no to everything and ignore or make up polls so they can say. "See, they had a majority and couldn't figure out how to govern so now they are ramming this down the throat of the American people.

Say it enough and it becomes truth for most people.

What are they going to say, "Miss me (Bush) yet?"

Wait, they are saying that too.

I heard Toobin on Fresh Air this morning saying that he thinks Stevens will step down and that Obama will pick Elena Kagan as she has already been vetted.

speaking of the increasing politicalization of the judiciary, did you see this? Justice's wife launches 'tea party' group:

The nonprofit run by Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is likely to test notions of political impartiality for the court.
...

Although Liberty Central is a nonpartisan group, its website shows an affinity for conservative principles. Her biography notes that Thomas is a fan of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, author of "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America."

"She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully," the bio says.

LAT

itokiyar, eh.


the revolution will not be televised...