The Judiciary Thread

[CrimsonJazz]

Another lone nut arrested at Red Mass with explosives.

A man arrested outside the annual Red Mass ceremony held at St. Matthew’s Cathedral had over 200 explosive devices in a tent on the church’s stairs, according to police.

Louis Geri, 41, touted homemade explosives when officers approached him on the step ahead of the service typically attended by Supreme Court justices to ring in a new term, according to court records reviewed by the Washington Post.

He later told officers, “several of your people are gonna die from one of these” and eventually handed over a nine-page document outlining his disdain for Catholicism, Judaism, Supreme Court justices and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The pages were torn from his notebook entitled “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives.”

 

[Its On A Slab]

I find it hard to take anything Josh Hawley or Foghorn Legh....um, Kennedy(the Senator and the head of HHS) says seriously.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

I find it hard to take anything Josh Hawley or Foghorn Legh....um, Kennedy(the Senator and the head of HHS) says seriously.

They brought the receipts. Besides, Kennedy is just funny. Even if you don't agree with him, he's a hoot to listen to.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

BREAKING: In an insane move, Justice Ketanji Jackson declares we need to draw Congressional districts based on race because black people are like disabled people

"They don't have equal access to the voting system. They're DISABLED!"

This is utter madness. How did she get on the Supreme Court?!

"My, kind of, paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the ADA against the backdrop of a world generally not accessible to people with disabilities...why is that not what's happening here?!"

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1978498569779737089

I'll take "things that sounds like they came from Joe Biden" for $1000, Alex.

 

[Bamaro]

BREAKING: In an insane move, Justice Ketanji Jackson declares we need to draw Congressional districts based on race because black people are like disabled people

"They don't have equal access to the voting system. They're DISABLED!"

This is utter madness. How did she get on the Supreme Court?!

"My, kind of, paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the ADA against the backdrop of a world generally not accessible to people with disabilities...why is that not what's happening here?!"

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1978498569779737089

I'll take "things that sounds like they came from Joe Biden" for $1000, Alex.

Gerrymandering for any reason is a very slippery slope and should probably be avoided.

 

[75thru79]

Gerrymandering for any reason is a very slippery slope and should probably be avoided.

We already slipped down that slope a long time ago.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Gerrymandering for any reason is a very slippery slope and should probably be avoided.

Alas, that toothpaste got squeezed out of the tube quite some time ago. I can't see a path toward getting it back in.

 

[Huckleberry]

Gerrymandering for any reason is a very slippery slope and should probably be avoided.

When gerrymandering is used to protect minority representation and prevent vote dilution, it serves a vital democratic purpose. But when it’s used purely to entrench political power, it undermines democracy — and should be outlawed.

 

[75thru79]

When gerrymandering is used to protect minority representation and prevent vote dilution, it serves a vital democratic purpose. But when it’s used purely to entrench political power, it undermines democracy — and should be outlawed.

The problem with racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act to "protect" minority votes is that it is a defacto political party gerrymandering for Democrats at the same time. African Americans, the racial group that benefits the most from the gerrymandering, has historically been overwhelmingly Democrat so any attempt to bolster the minority vote turns into political gerrymandering for the Democrats.

 

[Huckleberry]

The problem with racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act to "protect" minority votes is that it is a defacto political party gerrymandering for Democrats at the same time. African Americans, the racial group that benefits the most from the gerrymandering, has historically been overwhelmingly Democrat so any attempt to bolster the minority vote turns into political gerrymandering for the Democrats.

You make a valid point that racial and partisan gerrymandering can overlap in practice, especially since African-American voters have historically leaned heavily Democratic. However, the key distinction lies in intent and legal purpose.

Racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act is not about favoring a political party. It’s about ensuring that minority voters have a fair and undiluted opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. That protection was created because, for much of American history, maps were drawn to intentionally divide or weaken the voting strength of racial and ethnic minorities. The goal of the VRA is to correct those inequities, not to give an advantage to Democrats or Republicans.

In contrast, partisan gerrymandering is explicitly designed to entrench one party’s power by manipulating district lines to reduce competition and insulate incumbents. That kind of manipulation undermines democracy by allowing politicians to choose their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives.

So while racial gerrymandering can often have partisan effects, its legal justification and moral foundation are completely different. One is a response to systemic racial discrimination, and the other is a strategy for political dominance. The solution isn’t to abandon minority protections but to strengthen fair, transparent, and independent redistricting processes that serve both racial equity and democratic integrity.

If one party finds that its message isn’t appealing to a certain racial group, it’s the job of the party to find a legal and moral way to change that. Diluting the votes of minorities to achieve political gain isn’t the answer. That’s just moving backward. The solution to unbalanced support isn’t to suppress it; it’s to earn it. If a party struggles to connect with minority communities, the path forward is through outreach, inclusion, and policy ideas that resonate, not by rigging the map so those voices count for less.

Gerrymandering to silence or dilute minority voters doesn’t strengthen democracy; it weakens it. A healthy democracy invites more competition, more representation, and more accountability, not less.

 

[75thru79]

Gerrymandering to silence or dilute minority voters doesn’t strengthen democracy; it weakens it. A healthy democracy invites more competition, more representation, and more accountability, not less.

My position is that any type of gerrymandering should be considered illegal discrimination, regardless of whatever Machiavellian reason anyone can come up with.

For almost my entire adult life I've been bombarded by the message from Progressives that we should integrate all aspects of our lives. School busing, forced development of low cost housing in affluent areas, etc. All noble causes. Now, it turns out this integration has an unintended impact on voting. Progressives began to see how that same integration "diluted" the votes (that's a completely BS term, BTW) of minorities so they started gerrymandering en masse and used the Voting Rights Act to justify it. So, we want everyone to go to school together, work together, play sports together, pray together but when it comes to voting we want to carve out a special district for minorities because our integration push had unintended outcomes.

 

[Bodhisattva]

Racist policy is wrong. Full stop.

 

[Huckleberry]

My position is that any type of gerrymandering should be considered illegal discrimination, regardless of whatever Machiavellian reason anyone can come up with.

For almost my entire adult life I've been bombarded by the message from Progressives that we should integrate all aspects of our lives. School busing, forced development of low cost housing in affluent areas, etc. All noble causes. Now, it turns out this integration has an unintended impact on voting. Progressives began to see how that same integration "diluted" the votes (that's a completely BS term, BTW) of minorities so they started gerrymandering en masse and used the Voting Rights Act to justify it. So, we want everyone to go to school together, work together, play sports together, pray together but when it comes to voting we want to carve out a special district for minorities because our integration push had unintended outcomes.

So, just to be clear — after centuries of laws and district maps written to exclude minorities from equal representation, the real injustice is that we tried to fix it? Got it.

The Voting Rights Act wasn’t some secret “Machiavellian” plot cooked up in a back room of the DNC; it was passed because entire states were openly rigging the system to make sure certain Americans could vote without it counting for much. That’s not a partisan talking point — it’s our history.

Integration and fair representation aren’t opposites. You can believe kids should go to school together and that adults in those communities deserve to have their votes mean something. Pretending that “we all live together now” automatically erases generations of baked-in political inequality is a nice fantasy, but it’s not how reality functions.

If protecting minority voting rights accidentally inconveniences the political party that’s been drawing the lines for decades, maybe the problem isn’t the Voting Rights Act. Maybe the problem is that fair representation only feels unfair to those who’ve gotten used to the opposite.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

I don't think the VRA was any sort of plot. The issue is relevance, IMO. At one time it was needed and now it is not. (Kinda like affirmative action.)

 

[Bodhisattva]

I don't think the VRA was any sort of plot. The issue is relevance, IMO. At one time it was needed and now it is not. (Kinda like affirmative action.)

Yep. At one time this could be justified. Six decades later it cannot.

 

[Huckleberry]

I don't think the VRA was any sort of plot. The issue is relevance, IMO. At one time it was needed and now it is not. (Kinda like affirmative action.)

The idea that the Voting Rights Act has served its purpose would be great if voter suppression and racial targeting in redistricting had actually disappeared. But they haven’t. Courts still find cases where minority communities are split, packed, or shifted to weaken their influence, sometimes with the same justifications used decades ago.

The VRA isn’t some relic of the 1960s; it’s one of the only tools that still holds mapmakers accountable when the same old tricks get new packaging.

If we ever reach the point where equal access and representation are actually guaranteed in practice, not just in theory, I’ll be first in line to say we can retire it. But pretending we’re already there doesn’t make it true.

 

[some_al_fan]

Rather than deciding about various voter compositions, why not require districts to be squares (or rectangles)?
That will prevent all the issues of gerrymandering and combining votes that are hundreds of miles apart (new TX redistricting).

 

[75thru79]

Rather than deciding about various voter compositions, why not require districts to be squares (or rectangles)?
That will prevent all the issues of gerrymandering and combining votes that are hundreds of miles apart (new TX redistricting).

The point is to provide representation based on population not geometrical shapes (mainly because math is racist). I like the idea though......

 

[Bodhisattva]

Rather than deciding about various voter compositions, why not require districts to be squares (or rectangles)?
That will prevent all the issues of gerrymandering and combining votes that are hundreds of miles apart (new TX redistricting).

Surely, there can be some sort of model that does what you suggest in urban/densely populated areas or composes voting districts separated by natural geography (rivers, mountains) to get fairly equal populations in districts and then adjusted to account for census fluctuations. Leaving this in the hands of the politicians just ensures it to be a perpetual gerrymandering festival.

 

[CrimsonJazz]