My freshman year we had two Toms, Big Tom (he was quite tall) and Purple Tom (which was completely arbitrary). Second semester a third Tom moved in, so we just called him Third Tom. The next year Big Tom moved out so Third Tom was upgraded to Tom Beta. That was like 15 years ago and I think he still goes by Beta.
Interesting that you’d have knowledge on the subject of things (such as information) appearing earlier in the timeline than they should, Ana Chronistic. Things being… nonlinear? Anti-causal? Un-temporal? I’m sure there’s a word for it.
For some reason I see this ending up with Robin freaking out at Becky, then seeing her popularity has skyrocketed even more, shrugging, then walking off
Please remember: American “left wing” is still pretty right wing by normal standards.
We just don’t notice as much because the “right wing” republicans have shifted so far to the right as to have smashed straight through Poland. And almost anything looks “left wing” when compared to literal fascists.
I’ve said that sort of thing myself but it’s been pointed out that “normal standards” really means “Western European”. Which has some merit because it’s easier to compare positions in similar societies, such as wealthy industrialized ones, but if you look at *all* countries and many issues “the US is right wing” gets harder to defend.
Which of the US and India has a better actual welfare state?
And there are other “left/right” issues, like women’s rights and gay rights and assimilating immigrants. Despite current problems the US is far ahead of many countries on all of those — for immigrants, ahead of much of Europe. (And for all our racism problems, Romany/Gypsy issues don’t make Europe look good either.)
I mean based on the last referendum only about 1.5% of Puerto Ricans actually want independence compared to over 97% that want statehood. One can argue the specific merits of statehood vs independence, but generally speaking I would say that it’s a better idea to make decisions based on what an overwhelming majority of prefer. Don’t think there’s much merit to releasing a territory that overwhelmingly would prefer not to leave.
It’s more complicated, I think. The major groups in favor of the current status boycotted the referendum and turnout was correspondingly very low. Statehood might have won anyway, but it certainly would have been much closer. Total independence does seem to be very much a minority view though.
The previous referendum in 2012 was also complicated. There were 2 questions: The first was essentially “Maintain the current status: Yes/no”. No won, by ~54%. The second was What non-territorial status do you prefer? Statehood won that by around 60%. But with that approach, you can’t distinguish between those who actually want statehood and those who don’t want change but would take statehood if things had to change.
Basically, there’s no good evidence of an overwhelming majority. Leftists on the mainland often assume Puerto Ricans want statehood (or for more radical lefties, independence), but that’s mostly projection. And often the assumption that a PR state would be two more Democratic Senators. 🙂
It’s what I used to think, but I’ve been corrected by various PR activists.
Hi, actual Puerto Rican here! The last referendum was boycotted by over 80% of registered voters because, like the others before it, it was non-binding and a lot of folks deemd it a waste of resources and money, so I wouldn’t hold those results too close to the chest. It only got such a high vote for statehood because they comprised the 20%~ of registered voters who actually took part in the referendum.
As for where it falls in the left/right, the pro-state party is also the PR analog for the Republican Party and most of its platform is very right-wing. They’re usually behind anti LGBTQ+ legislation, anti-abortion legislation, and trying even harder to blur the line between church and state. I often tell my stateside friends that we’d fit right in the bible belt if the dominant denomination of Christianity in the island were Protestant instead of Catholic.
Anyway referendum results aside, the boilerplate leftist position on Puerto Rico is that it is a colony of the United States, and as such decolonization is necessary – which means independence, not statehood, which would simply make Puerto Rico an internal, rather than external, colony. Given that leftists, as a general rule, do not regard the United States as a legitimate entity (as it is a state created through settler colonialism), no leftist worth their salt would have any interest in adding more states to it, especially when it would simply perpetuate existing colonialism.
The De Santos are some variety of Hispanic so this might actually be a personal opinion. Also I think statehood is the plurality opinion of Puerto Ricans these days. Also I don’t see how it’s a left/right issue.
Now that being said, the last referendum’s voter turnout was ridiculously low – only 23%. HOWEVER, in the 2012 referendum, statehood also overwhelmingly favoured statehood at 61% – an inarguable majority.
I imagine after both parties claimed they would respect the outcome of the vote, and then they voted, and then nothing happened and nothing will continue to happen, because Puerto Rico would likely tip the balance of power in the senate, that people decided it wasn’t worth voting in.
That, or the second referendum was in a midterm. Or both.
If I recall correctly, the group that was against statehood claimed the election was illegitamate and told people not to vote in it. Which is why the results so overwhelmingly favor statehood — those who were against it didn’t vote.
The 61% was for statehood if the current status changed. The vote to change the current status was much closer, ~54%. Because of the way the questions were asked, there’s no way to break out those who wanted to retain the current status from the various non-territorial options. It’s likely but not certain if they’d simply given the options of Territory/State/Independence/Free Association, staying a territory would have won a plurality.
There was also a boycott of the second question in that referendum, which were likely mostly Remainers.
54% is still a majority and past referendums (like the 1993 one) were extremely close. I wouldn’t be too sure that Territory would have won if territory voters hadn’t boycotted it in 2017
54% is still a majority, but it’s not a majority for statehood – since some percentage of those wanted one of the other non-Territory options. Due to the design of the referendum, we don’t know how that breaks down.
That’s the problem, it’s a referendum designed to get the results it got.
I’m not at all sure that Territory would have won in either case, but it’s not nearly so clear as the referendums make it look on the surface.
Also I think statehood is the plurality opinion of Puerto Ricans these days. Also I don’t see how it’s a left/right issue.
Although Puerto Ricans are already American citizens, they have only one non-voting representative in congress. If it became a state, it would get the full compliment of Senators and Representatives – and the last thing the right wing wants is brown people to have more political power.
It’s a left/right issue because of national elections. If Puerto Rico is granted statehood, it would get 4 seats in the House of Representatives (taking seats from other states), two Senate seats, and 6 electoral votes. (I’m basing this off Utah’s numbers, since the respective population numbers are pretty close.) It’s a pretty safe bet that all these positions would be solidly Democratic, and of course the Republicans don’t want that.
That’s why I said *might*. AFAIK we don’t know what kind of Hispanic they are.
“letting brown people have more of a say in their own politics as a left/right issue these days”
That’s not what was being discussed. What was being discussed was PR statehood vs. independence (vs. the status quo of territory). Something Puerto Rico gets to vote on with rather high frequency. They get a say. If they could ever make a clear majority choice among the three options, they would probably get it.
You haven’t done anything to support Jabberwock’s claim that a “true leftist” should support PR independence over statehood.
If you don’t seen colonialism and letting brown people have more of a say in their own politics as a left/right issue these days, I’m not sure what to say.
The voting public is so confused that no one is quite sure who won. The opposition pays Robin to step down, she agrees, gets a comfy sum of money and works at Galasso’s because she can.
I was likewise wondering when Other Rachel got so into dinosaurs, and also why Becky was particularly anticipating her needs. Then I looked a little closer and it suddenly made more sense.
She’s one of 438 members of the House of Representatives. She’s on the national stage, which is powerful in and of itself even if she only represents one district.
Then the next Republican President goes for five more supreme Court Justices…
We already had this before, pretty sure you need a constitutional amendment to change the number anyway and that’s not happening.
Look up Roosevelt packing the Supreme Court, I can’t copy/paste on my phone.
The Constitution does not specify the number of Supreme Court justices, and there have been varying numbers at different times throughout US history (both more than, and less than, the current number). The current state of there being nine justices has been around for less than a century.
No it’s the fastest way to get rid of the assholes like Kavanaugh who will roll civil rights back to the 1920s if they get the chance. Those can and should be impeached, but that will be harder and slower and there’s too much harm they can do in the meantime
“What the Republicans will do in response” is the most pointless, shortsighted thing to worry about right now. Norms didn’t stop McConnell from stealing a SCOTUS, didn’t stop a rapist from getting another one, or stop basically any of the incredibly vile shit this administration has done.
Fuck doing nothing just to protect norms. They’ve already failed
Yes, let’s throw all the rules out the window, because the other side would do it, too. Funny, I hear exactly the same argument from Trump’s supporters.
There’s a world of difference between ‘the other side would disregard the rules given the chance, so we should too’ and ‘the other side is flouting the rules to hurt people and the rules are not stopping them. Maybe we should change the rules in a way that will actually stop them’.
I’m not familiar enough with the judiciary’s powers in the US to comment on whether more justices is effective or not, but those two positions are not the same thing.
Nope. The Constitution isn’t terribly specific about the Court, and doesn’t set the number of Justices. IIRC, the number is currently set by statute, and so the Court could be expanded by act of Congress. Still extremely unlikely.
FDR’s court-packing plan was a tactical defeat, but a strategic victory. He didn’t get any extra Justices, but it was shortly after this that the Court started to cave to his will. We’re still living with the toxic legacy.
You don’t need a constitutional amendment; Congress decides the size of the Supreme Court, and moved it from 7 to 9 in the 19th century.
That being said, courtpacking is a bad idea because it would just lead to the Republicans doing the same thing.
So in order to keep Republicans from packing the Court and getting a majority when they control Congress and the White House, we should leave Republicans a majority on the Court?
That they obtained by first the unprecedented, though admittedly not illegal, obstruction of a SC nomination for nearly a year and second the theft of the White House through conspiracy with a foreign power.
How does this make any practical or moral sense?
I’d rather just remove and replace Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, but that’s not likely to be possible. And would set its own precedent.
Actually, Kavanaugh’s temper tantrum, conspiracy rantings, and statement of desired vengeance (all of which occured on tape at his confirmation hearing) seem like a good enough reason to impeach him once a majority can be assembled to do so.
Granted, it should have been enough to stop him in the first place, but we must remember that Republicans can put such petty things aside when it’s their own doing them.
67 votes in the Senate to remove. Unless the political climate changes drastically, such a majority is unlikely to be assembled. Certainly not for something which was known to the Senators at the time of confirmation, many of whom would likely be the same Senators voting on his conviction.
Nope. Requirements for removal through Impeachment are spelled out in the Constitution, not just Senate Rules: “And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.”
That’s hella bold, Carla, but can’t you find some actively-criminal actions that are palatable to you? No need to make awesome engineering or sweet skate-type stuff or whatever harder for everyone else to do.
She just needs to study the law more closely. Given the current state of our criminal code, it’s hard to get through the day without doing something that could be construed as a crime. Just do a quick search for “3 felonies a day”.
There was a period of time where I knew four guys named Matt, and whenever Matt Three annoyed me I’d ‘demote’ him, eventually inventing new Matts to outrank him. He made it all the way down to Matt Seven once.
At one point at my crappy retail job there were three Daniels working in the same part of the store. Whenever someone from another part of the store wanted to speak to a Daniel they had to specify which one they wanted.
I went to high school with no less than 8 Alexa, 5 Wills, and 9 Chrises in my Senior class. I just referred to them by their last names. It worked pretty well. Especially considering they kinda did as well.
The name was actually rising in popularity a bit before the damn speaker took it. If anything I’d expect it going down, getting the ‘Alexa do X’ jokes gets old FAST.
I had a class in junior high where there were four Johns, three John C.s, and two John Campbells. We had a substitute one time. We almost got sent to the office because she was convinced we were messing with her.
Fortunately, the other John Campbell later resolved the problem when his parents got divorced and he took his mother’s maiden name.
A lot of even my mundane friends call me by my SCA name, because I answer to it as readily as I do “John”, and it’s far less ambiguous. My gaming group at one point was entirely made up of Jo(h)ns.
I have an SCA friend who has the same problem with “Jennifer”, but who made the mistake of picking an SCA name that was also really common, so we have to use both of her names to disambiguate her from all the other people who share one or the other.
…. with or without a referendum by the territory? I’m definitely in favor of an open-invitation law where the territory can automatically choose to become a state WITH a referendum, no further approval by the federal government required, but without one feels kinda pushy.
Wow. That was a KILLER sales pitch. Becky is good at her job.
I love how she diffused the argument with Roz AND get the rest of the wing on her side (and make great progress in securing their votes as well) AND brainstorm more material to tweet.
For Robin, Becky is worth every dinosaur she can embellish.
She de-escalated that like a pro! Good job, Becky!
I hope this doesn’t actually get girls to vote for Robin, mostly because I don’t want her to win. I’m hoping the girls realize that just because Becky says it doesn’t mean Robin will oblige, especially since she’s clearly not be consulted.
*psst* Roz, might wanna consider another scandal a couple of days before the election, just in case Becky ends up actually being a wunderkind. You and Becky can plan something out.
I think a scandal might backfire. It seems like any publicity is good publicity for Robin right now, and the people Becky’s reaching might be drawn to the spectacle rather than repulsed by it.
…. of course, Becky’s only reaching like half a dozen people right now, let’s keep that in perspective.
Roz has referred to Jake Manley as ‘progressive’. Considering Roz’s standards, I wonder if these are things he’s brought up in his own campaign? Normally I would doubt it since this is frigging Indiana and he and Robin were supposed to be neck and neck, but considering the recent upswell of candidates with more left leanings, I suppose it’s possible.
Purple Rachel then? Or for a real name, we can go with Rae or Chel.
Those are all good things the dormies asked Becky for, but I’d ask to tweet that all presidential candidates have a certain number of years’ experience politically to run. It would disqualify military as well but I think it’s for the best.
I’d’ve asked for any repeated congressional investigations (as in, do-overs by the same committee being run by the same weasels who just want to influence the vote towards the Individual-1 I suspect you’re alluding to at least partly in your post) be paid for out-of-pocket by the aforementioned weasels.
Seriously, after the fourth run at the same thing, with the same evidence, by the same people, coming to the same conclusion, your strategy has to stop being “let’s do the Time Warp again” unless you’re paying for it your damn selves.
Becky’s a lot more savvy than I think some of us were giving her credit for. I just kinda wonder how Robin’ll handle some of this, like, I wonder what her actual wants are. To get reelected, certainly, but beyond that, what is she loyal to?
Surprised no one threw out “abolition of the electoral college”. Then again, maybe the more politically savy members of the hall think that’s unrealistic because it’s been tried many times and failed each time (unfortunately).
A surprising number of states have actually opted out of the Electoral College and have passed legislature that their votes go to the winner of the popular vote. Like 15.
* Maryland
* New Jersey
* Illinois
* Hawaii
* Washington
* Massachusetts
* Washington D.C.
* California
* Vermont
* Rhode Island
* New York
* Conneticut
* Colorado
* Delaware
* New Mexico
It is however all solid Democratic states. The last ones will be harder to get.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it. I’ve talked it up off and on for years. It’s the only way of getting the Electoral College out of the way that’s at all viable in the short term.
I live in the Deep South where segregation if not a distant memory. It’s not at all an impossibility to have the electoral college turned into a tool for the reactionary Right as well as the Left.
Trump lost my 3 million votes. That’s not nearly as large as people think it is.
Mandate proper sex ed (not abstinence only BS) and free birth control for all.
Separation of Church and State means that religion has to stay out of science education (Creationism can be taught in Religion classes but not as a scientific theory, flat earthers don’t get a look-in).
Free at point of use national healthcare
Invest in becoming a world leader in renewable energy usage and refinement
And, immediately, Robin Desanto gets attacked as trying to destroy all the world’s cows… for no good reason… but, she’s obviously liberal now, so reasons don’t matter.
I advocate separation of Church and State so that the government can stay out of churches. The corporate big box churches are nothing more than shills for the Republican party to fleece the public.
I think there’s a better chance of cloning dinosaur DNA and creating ‘Jurassic Park’ for real than Congress ever doing anything positive and long-lasting with regards to world peace. Seriously … even after we knocked out Hitler and (supposedly) defeated Nazism and made Europe safe again, all it turned out that really had been accomplished was to make it easier for the next biggest bully on the block (Stalin and his form of communism) to take over.
IIRC, the vexillology department of the US military has designs in store for flags of up to 56 stars to be put into use pending the addition of additional states.
Hey, it’s Rachel! My 2nd favorite and one of my two 3rd favorite characters in the same strip (plus spoken intervention by the top favorite) in the same strip. Can we get Danny here, too?
I’m not exactly sure what more SCOTUS judges would fix. Though there’s a case to be made that a staggered increase would provide granularity, a single batch increase of 4 would have them all be nominated by the same POTUS. Right now, that would mean that by 2024 you would (most likely) be dealing with a 10-3 shitstain majority (I’m sorry, but I have little hope that RBG is going to be in the condition to keep saving your asses for 5 more years – she’s EIGHTY SIX).
Right now, obviously not.
It’s a move to be taken once Democrats regain control. It would require legislation, so it would only be possible with control of the White House and both Houses of Congress.
If Trump wins reelection and Republicans retake the House and hold the Senate, there’d be no advantage to it for them. They’ve already got a majority on the Court and as you say it’s likely there’ll be another chance to replace a liberal within 5 years.
And honestly, 2 would be sufficient. Going from a 5-4 conservative majority to a 6-5 liberal one.
Soooo… Rachel is making a wish for AT LEAST 2022 (I hear it’s pretty much impossible for Democrats to get… whichever house they don’t have right now), and more likely for 2024?
I’m not sure it’s going to be important by then, seeing as the US government is ALREADY telling courts to go fuck themselves.
I dunno who told you it was pretty much impossible for Dems to retake the senate this election, but they were wrong. There’s way more Republicans up for re-election than democrats this time, and a lot of Democrats last time were in basically impossible seats (red state Dems).
From what I recall, it’s that of the *checks internet* 22 seat the GOP holds, 19 of them were solidly won by Trump, and another is Susan Collins’. Seeing as Dems have to increase their current seat number by 3 or (far more likely) 4 to get the Senate, it’s… not looking good, at best.
There have been quite a few people who were in solidly Trump areas who lost their bids in 2018 midterms and special elections.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard, but it’s far from impossible. That’s why it’s important to get your American friends to volunteer, canvas, donate, etc.
The Senate. And it’s not “pretty much impossible”, though it will be fairly difficult. There are a few seats I really hope get flipped this time (provided the individuals warming them are facing reelection), though.
Leaving aside the question of the liberal-vs-conservative count (which is important, I’m not discounting it), there’s also an argument to be made that increasing the number will decrease the importance of each particular justice, meaning that Congress is less likely to go into a seizure every time they have to nominate a new one.
I’m not sure that holds. True, more justices mean each individual justice has less influence, but that doesn’t make each single appointment less important unless the SCOTUS is already incredibly imbalanced to one side (and it would be the Republican side, because the current Democrat establishment would probably consider imbalancing the SCOTUS to be “impolite” or some shit like that). If it’s balanced, then a single appointment could make the whole thing tilt to one side.
That’s . . . not sabotage. That’s making promises the constituents want to hear with plausible deniability about being serious in regards to any specific one. At this point, it’s so obviously gonna go wrong I’m kinda thinking Willis is messing with us and it’ll turn out great.
“You know, if I’m going to be the snarky miscreant, I’d like to actually be doing BAD things? It’s annoying when I skate past cops and throw them the double bird, they don’t give chase! It’s bad for my rep!”
No, they don’t cancel out being a rich white girl. But being a rich white girl doesn’t cancel out being trans either. Or gay or ace for that matter.
Her biggest privilege is having parents who support her. Much of that “rich white” privilege would have meant damn little if her parents had Toedad’s attitude. It just would have given them more tools to abuse her with.
And everyone clearly ignores the abuse of thrust, You might dislike Robins policy but when someone gives you their hand you don’t bite it.
You want to make them see another opinion you do directly, Becky is lucky she didn’t had charges placed on her before for identity deft.
Robin’s old policies included support for legislation that would make it legal for LGBT people to be evicted or fired simply for who they are
This is not a matter of simply disagreeing with her on how taxes should work. Laws such as that serve no purpose but to make it harder for people like Becky to survive and force them back into the closet or into early graves
Even if Robin hadn’t explicitly hired Becky for tweeting things like this, “abusing her trust” is not something any of these kids should give a damn about
I personally don’t think you can sabotage Robin when all she wants is to stay Congresswoman. She doesn’t care who supports her, it’s just that appealing to the conservative base had always been reliable. That’s why she asked Becky to continue tweeting about liberal ideals, because those seem to be working too.
Alt text; Willis, the tags have lied before. You had Jocelyne originally tagged as Joshua and you even said ‘would the tags lie’ when we found out ‘Ryan’ isn’t actually the guy’s legal name.
Not to negate the rest of your point, but I believe the asshole mentioned that “Ryan” is still part of his legal name…it’s just his middle name, and that’s not usually listed on student directories (which is what Dorothy and co. were looking through beforehand).
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#for2ndrachel
#4moresupremecourtrachels
My freshman year we had two Toms, Big Tom (he was quite tall) and Purple Tom (which was completely arbitrary). Second semester a third Tom moved in, so we just called him Third Tom. The next year Big Tom moved out so Third Tom was upgraded to Tom Beta. That was like 15 years ago and I think he still goes by Beta.
Tomorrow’s headline: Rep DeSanto Reviews Sister’s Sex Video, Praises Her Technique
Using a time machine to read tomorrows papers is illegal in 12 of the major timelines.
What if it’s the Evening Edition
sorry, Early Edition
Interesting that you’d have knowledge on the subject of things (such as information) appearing earlier in the timeline than they should, Ana Chronistic. Things being… nonlinear? Anti-causal? Un-temporal? I’m sure there’s a word for it.
Curse you, Ana! I’d finally forgotten that show!
*scrambles to find DVDs*
Really? Patreon seems perfectly legal to me 😛
Yes, for your friend. Sure 😀
You’ll just be Rachel, but the one who used to be known as simply Rachel will now be Better Rachel.
Tall Rachel?
But that would mean Other Rachel would be Fat Rachel, and that’s mean.
Ah, the Tankor Principle.
Tall, Fat… that calls for Hill Rachel to round out the ranks of the Lieutenants Rachel.
(A cookie… no, a big red cheese to whoever knows what the hell I’m talking about.)
The Lieutenants Marvel. Too easy.
But why? Only one Rachel needs a descriptor.
Besides, weight is generally easier to change than height.
Because you can’t have a Tall Tankor without a Fat Tankor. That’s how it works.
Old Rachel?
Mean Rachel.
Wait, when did she morph into a starfish?
Duty.
Second Rachel?
I was thinking purple Rachel cuz of the hair.
why not Purple Rachel? and then if her hair colour changes she becomes {Insert hair colour] Rachel
But what if she dyes her hair black? What then?
Goth rachel?
The Rachel formerly known as Other Rachel.
Rachel Classic.
Rachel (Armada)
“In my head, I change the meaning from Other Rachel to Original Rachel, so now it’s a compliment.”
(Silicon Valley, anyone?)
Not the Other Rachel.
Becky I think you’ve gone mad with power, and I love it. This can only end well, let me get some popcorn.
honestly, this is the kindest, gentlest pandering I’ve ever seen though. But yes is it beautiful and most cornworthy
“Cornworthy” sounds like an Illinois-based farming cult.
For some reason I see this ending up with Robin freaking out at Becky, then seeing her popularity has skyrocketed even more, shrugging, then walking off
“Of course I have. Have you ever tried going mad without power? It’s boring, no one listens to you.”
Well, yes, but then you get to plan how to show them all before destroying them like the insignificant insects they are.
Dammit, you win this time.
Have you tried becoming mad without power? Nobody takes you seriously.
If Robin’s Republican base hasn’t already abandoned her by now, these tweets by Becky are sure to drive them away.
This is going to be a beautiful trainwreck.
Rachel deserves better.
Not the tall one, she’s an asshole.
Rachel and Tall Rachel 2020.
They need to open a lawfirm together…
Rachel and Rachel.
Hey, if Allen, Allen, Allen, and Allen can do it, why not them?
As much as I think she’s an asshole, she’s almost always an asshole for the right reasons.
Oh Meredith, you so crazy
Sorry, Other Rachel, only realistic requests.
Look, Becky can change policy but she can’t change the laws of nature, Other Rachel.
Roz: yeah I’m a leftist
Also Roz: Puerto Rican statehood and not independence
Please remember: American “left wing” is still pretty right wing by normal standards.
We just don’t notice as much because the “right wing” republicans have shifted so far to the right as to have smashed straight through Poland. And almost anything looks “left wing” when compared to literal fascists.
I’ve said that sort of thing myself but it’s been pointed out that “normal standards” really means “Western European”. Which has some merit because it’s easier to compare positions in similar societies, such as wealthy industrialized ones, but if you look at *all* countries and many issues “the US is right wing” gets harder to defend.
Thank you for challenging the eurocentrism!
No it doesn’t. Most postcolonial countries have the idea of a welfare state hard-coded into the constitution. USA does not.
Source: I live in India.
Which of the US and India has a better actual welfare state?
And there are other “left/right” issues, like women’s rights and gay rights and assimilating immigrants. Despite current problems the US is far ahead of many countries on all of those — for immigrants, ahead of much of Europe. (And for all our racism problems, Romany/Gypsy issues don’t make Europe look good either.)
I mean based on the last referendum only about 1.5% of Puerto Ricans actually want independence compared to over 97% that want statehood. One can argue the specific merits of statehood vs independence, but generally speaking I would say that it’s a better idea to make decisions based on what an overwhelming majority of prefer. Don’t think there’s much merit to releasing a territory that overwhelmingly would prefer not to leave.
Puerto Rexit
It’s more complicated, I think. The major groups in favor of the current status boycotted the referendum and turnout was correspondingly very low. Statehood might have won anyway, but it certainly would have been much closer. Total independence does seem to be very much a minority view though.
The previous referendum in 2012 was also complicated. There were 2 questions: The first was essentially “Maintain the current status: Yes/no”. No won, by ~54%. The second was What non-territorial status do you prefer? Statehood won that by around 60%. But with that approach, you can’t distinguish between those who actually want statehood and those who don’t want change but would take statehood if things had to change.
Basically, there’s no good evidence of an overwhelming majority. Leftists on the mainland often assume Puerto Ricans want statehood (or for more radical lefties, independence), but that’s mostly projection. And often the assumption that a PR state would be two more Democratic Senators. 🙂
It’s what I used to think, but I’ve been corrected by various PR activists.
Wouldn’t answering the first question ‘no’ and then picking statehood help distinguish those who only want statehood if things have to change?
I don’t think the results are available broken down to “Voted No and State”, vs
“Voted Yes and State”.
No, but wouldn’t that information help clarify things in the future? Since, lbr, there will probably be at least one more referendum about this.
Hi, actual Puerto Rican here! The last referendum was boycotted by over 80% of registered voters because, like the others before it, it was non-binding and a lot of folks deemd it a waste of resources and money, so I wouldn’t hold those results too close to the chest. It only got such a high vote for statehood because they comprised the 20%~ of registered voters who actually took part in the referendum.
As for where it falls in the left/right, the pro-state party is also the PR analog for the Republican Party and most of its platform is very right-wing. They’re usually behind anti LGBTQ+ legislation, anti-abortion legislation, and trying even harder to blur the line between church and state. I often tell my stateside friends that we’d fit right in the bible belt if the dominant denomination of Christianity in the island were Protestant instead of Catholic.
The one everyone boycotted lmao
Anyway referendum results aside, the boilerplate leftist position on Puerto Rico is that it is a colony of the United States, and as such decolonization is necessary – which means independence, not statehood, which would simply make Puerto Rico an internal, rather than external, colony. Given that leftists, as a general rule, do not regard the United States as a legitimate entity (as it is a state created through settler colonialism), no leftist worth their salt would have any interest in adding more states to it, especially when it would simply perpetuate existing colonialism.
The De Santos are some variety of Hispanic so this might actually be a personal opinion. Also I think statehood is the plurality opinion of Puerto Ricans these days. Also I don’t see how it’s a left/right issue.
It is an overwhelming majority who want statehood as of the last referendum.
Now that being said, the last referendum’s voter turnout was ridiculously low – only 23%. HOWEVER, in the 2012 referendum, statehood also overwhelmingly favoured statehood at 61% – an inarguable majority.
I imagine after both parties claimed they would respect the outcome of the vote, and then they voted, and then nothing happened and nothing will continue to happen, because Puerto Rico would likely tip the balance of power in the senate, that people decided it wasn’t worth voting in.
That, or the second referendum was in a midterm. Or both.
If I recall correctly, the group that was against statehood claimed the election was illegitamate and told people not to vote in it. Which is why the results so overwhelmingly favor statehood — those who were against it didn’t vote.
That’s true for the most recent one, not for the 2012 one that I can find.
The 61% was for statehood if the current status changed. The vote to change the current status was much closer, ~54%. Because of the way the questions were asked, there’s no way to break out those who wanted to retain the current status from the various non-territorial options. It’s likely but not certain if they’d simply given the options of Territory/State/Independence/Free Association, staying a territory would have won a plurality.
There was also a boycott of the second question in that referendum, which were likely mostly Remainers.
54% is still a majority and past referendums (like the 1993 one) were extremely close. I wouldn’t be too sure that Territory would have won if territory voters hadn’t boycotted it in 2017
54% is still a majority, but it’s not a majority for statehood – since some percentage of those wanted one of the other non-Territory options. Due to the design of the referendum, we don’t know how that breaks down.
That’s the problem, it’s a referendum designed to get the results it got.
I’m not at all sure that Territory would have won in either case, but it’s not nearly so clear as the referendums make it look on the surface.
Yeah, it looks like one of those things where there’ll probably need to be yet another referendum on this.
Also I think statehood is the plurality opinion of Puerto Ricans these days. Also I don’t see how it’s a left/right issue.
Although Puerto Ricans are already American citizens, they have only one non-voting representative in congress. If it became a state, it would get the full compliment of Senators and Representatives – and the last thing the right wing wants is brown people to have more political power.
Which is also why the hearing on District of Columbia statehood that is proposed is both rare and more than likely, a waste of time.
It’s a left/right issue because of national elections. If Puerto Rico is granted statehood, it would get 4 seats in the House of Representatives (taking seats from other states), two Senate seats, and 6 electoral votes. (I’m basing this off Utah’s numbers, since the respective population numbers are pretty close.) It’s a pretty safe bet that all these positions would be solidly Democratic, and of course the Republicans don’t want that.
“It’s a left/right issue because of national elections.”
But that would make *statehood* the leftist position, the opposite of what I was replying to.
The DeSantos being Hispanic doesn’t give them any particular insight into Puerto Rico, unless they’re actually Puerto Rican. They’re not all the same.
“They’re not all the same.”
That’s why I said *might*. AFAIK we don’t know what kind of Hispanic they are.
“letting brown people have more of a say in their own politics as a left/right issue these days”
That’s not what was being discussed. What was being discussed was PR statehood vs. independence (vs. the status quo of territory). Something Puerto Rico gets to vote on with rather high frequency. They get a say. If they could ever make a clear majority choice among the three options, they would probably get it.
You haven’t done anything to support Jabberwock’s claim that a “true leftist” should support PR independence over statehood.
If you don’t seen colonialism and letting brown people have more of a say in their own politics as a left/right issue these days, I’m not sure what to say.
Throwing them out after taking all their stuff is probably worse than giving them what the majority wants.
this was pretty jarring for me too since the pro-state movement in PR is laughably right-wing.
source: i live there
I wonder if the voting public will be so confused by Robin’s message that she’ll get re-elected by accident.
That’s almost certainly what will happen. Complete with Becky on election night giving a thousand yard stare realizing her mistake.
Or maybe Robin loses by 50 points and goes to work at Galassos
Not gonna lie, I think I’d kinda like to see that. Historically, I kinda like Robin best when she’s in a position to be “fuck it” wacky.
The voting public is so confused that no one is quite sure who won. The opposition pays Robin to step down, she agrees, gets a comfy sum of money and works at Galasso’s because she can.
Since she’s an incumbent, sheer inertia might be enough.
I’m just gonna say, it took me a moment to realize that the dinosaur speech bubble was coming from Dina’s room and not Second Rachel.
Same, honestly. For a moment there I was super excited to find out Other Rachel was super into dinosaurs : )
Oh good. I’m not the only one who thought that.
I was likewise wondering when Other Rachel got so into dinosaurs, and also why Becky was particularly anticipating her needs. Then I looked a little closer and it suddenly made more sense.
Me too.
I thought so too. I assumed she had just come from Dina’s room.
Same.
Dammit, you ruined it.
Also, Dina is probably saying that while seated on the back of her room-sized plush giant non-feathered veliciraptor.
She is a perfectionist. Also, she is NOT getting up.
The Artist Formerly Known as Rachel.
Hold up, aren’t these all federal issues? Does Robin have any form of control over any of this?
She’s in congress, so yeah, kinda.
She’s in the US Congress, isn’t she?
Robin is one of the representatives for the state of Indiana in Congress, so…
I believe that Robin is a House Representative, so she would actually be on the Federal level and thus capable of voting on most of these things.
She’s in the House of Representatives, which is Federal.
She’s one of 438 members of the House of Representatives. She’s on the national stage, which is powerful in and of itself even if she only represents one district.
435
Thanks, I just took a mental shortcut wit (electoral votes – 100 senators).
Rachels name is a federal issue?
Maybe it’s a state issue and she’ll magically become First Rachel if she goes to Michigan.
Cold, Swift and Completely Ridiculous…or it’s FREE.
Always Carla-Cola!
(and it’s ‘Absolutely Ridiculous’)
“Four more Supreme Court justices” might not be a stance you want her to take running for Congress…
Then the next Republican President goes for five more supreme Court Justices…
We already had this before, pretty sure you need a constitutional amendment to change the number anyway and that’s not happening.
Look up Roosevelt packing the Supreme Court, I can’t copy/paste on my phone.
The Constitution does not specify the number of Supreme Court justices, and there have been varying numbers at different times throughout US history (both more than, and less than, the current number). The current state of there being nine justices has been around for less than a century.
No it’s the fastest way to get rid of the assholes like Kavanaugh who will roll civil rights back to the 1920s if they get the chance. Those can and should be impeached, but that will be harder and slower and there’s too much harm they can do in the meantime
“What the Republicans will do in response” is the most pointless, shortsighted thing to worry about right now. Norms didn’t stop McConnell from stealing a SCOTUS, didn’t stop a rapist from getting another one, or stop basically any of the incredibly vile shit this administration has done.
Fuck doing nothing just to protect norms. They’ve already failed
Yes, let’s throw all the rules out the window, because the other side would do it, too. Funny, I hear exactly the same argument from Trump’s supporters.
Cheeto Benito and Bongo McConnell have already done that.
Personally I can think of better ways to fix it, but I sadly doubt it will come to that .
Also, Dina? Much as your idea sounds fun, you might just want them to ban the making of future Jurassic Park movies. Just sayin’.
There’s a world of difference between ‘the other side would disregard the rules given the chance, so we should too’ and ‘the other side is flouting the rules to hurt people and the rules are not stopping them. Maybe we should change the rules in a way that will actually stop them’.
I’m not familiar enough with the judiciary’s powers in the US to comment on whether more justices is effective or not, but those two positions are not the same thing.
It’s long past “would”, they already HAVE. But there’s not even an actual rule against it. I’m talking about NORMS
Norms like “not kidnapping children and locking them in cages” are just a tiny fucking bit more significant than “the Supreme Court has 9 justices”
Norms like “holding hearings and votes on Supreme Court Justices”.
You’d still have to do that if you added more justices. The number of justices doesn’t change how they’re chosen.
Yeah, just another norm that was broken by the GOP in the recent past.
Oh! I see. I misunderstood the point you were making.
And Nazis love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, what’s your point?
The number of supreme court justices isn’t a rule, it’s a tradition and not a particularly old one.
Nope. The Constitution isn’t terribly specific about the Court, and doesn’t set the number of Justices. IIRC, the number is currently set by statute, and so the Court could be expanded by act of Congress. Still extremely unlikely.
FDR’s court-packing plan was a tactical defeat, but a strategic victory. He didn’t get any extra Justices, but it was shortly after this that the Court started to cave to his will. We’re still living with the toxic legacy.
You don’t need a constitutional amendment; Congress decides the size of the Supreme Court, and moved it from 7 to 9 in the 19th century.
That being said, courtpacking is a bad idea because it would just lead to the Republicans doing the same thing.
So in order to keep Republicans from packing the Court and getting a majority when they control Congress and the White House, we should leave Republicans a majority on the Court?
That they obtained by first the unprecedented, though admittedly not illegal, obstruction of a SC nomination for nearly a year and second the theft of the White House through conspiracy with a foreign power.
How does this make any practical or moral sense?
I’d rather just remove and replace Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, but that’s not likely to be possible. And would set its own precedent.
Actually, Kavanaugh’s temper tantrum, conspiracy rantings, and statement of desired vengeance (all of which occured on tape at his confirmation hearing) seem like a good enough reason to impeach him once a majority can be assembled to do so.
Granted, it should have been enough to stop him in the first place, but we must remember that Republicans can put such petty things aside when it’s their own doing them.
67 votes in the Senate to remove. Unless the political climate changes drastically, such a majority is unlikely to be assembled. Certainly not for something which was known to the Senators at the time of confirmation, many of whom would likely be the same Senators voting on his conviction.
If Turtle-Boy can rewrite rules to suit what he wants to do, so can anyone else. The magic number is technically 51.
Nope. Requirements for removal through Impeachment are spelled out in the Constitution, not just Senate Rules: “And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.”
Ah, right, my bad. We’ve just seen so many rules get thrown into the wood chipper lately that it’s hard to remember which ones are less destructible.
We have nine Supreme Court justices only because of tradition.
Four more Supreme Court justices? Nine plus four is thirteen. Let’s take a pass on that one for obvious reasons.
You mean because of how dumb it would be when the thirteenth one turned out to be Optimus Prime somehow?
The point – which all of these responses seem to have missed – being that she’s not running for President.
Eh, we didn’t before when the courts stifled “Communist” legislation, and it worked out fine.
I like to think Other Rachel is her actual name. First name Other, last name Rachel.
“Rachel second of her name”
“Wearer of the purple dyed hair”
That’s why I’m Rose…otherwise it’s Jessica “A”
Done! You are now: Lesser Rachel!
Roz pretty much going, “Oh shit I need that phone I can do so much damage”
There’s no possible way this could go wrong!
That’s hella bold, Carla, but can’t you find some actively-criminal actions that are palatable to you? No need to make awesome engineering or sweet skate-type stuff or whatever harder for everyone else to do.
She just needs to study the law more closely. Given the current state of our criminal code, it’s hard to get through the day without doing something that could be construed as a crime. Just do a quick search for “3 felonies a day”.
Or being trans.
Yeah, Carla should be careful with her political monkey’s paw
Ooooooooooooof
Other Rachel: “You can call me Betty!”
Becky: “And you can call me Al.”
“No one can see me or hear me but you.”
“Guess I’ll change my name to Sam then.”
Well, damn, Roz sure didn’t keep me waiting on Latino rights.
(I mean, I knew she wouldn’t, I have patreon, but hush, theres a strict no spoiler rule so I couldn’t just say it).
And since you asked Rachel, I dub thee – Rachel M.
There was a period of time where I knew four guys named Matt, and whenever Matt Three annoyed me I’d ‘demote’ him, eventually inventing new Matts to outrank him. He made it all the way down to Matt Seven once.
Hah! That is awesome.
Did he climb in the ranks when he got back in your good grace again, though?
Well, if you ever need filler…
At one point at my crappy retail job there were three Daniels working in the same part of the store. Whenever someone from another part of the store wanted to speak to a Daniel they had to specify which one they wanted.
I went to high school with no less than 8 Alexa, 5 Wills, and 9 Chrises in my Senior class. I just referred to them by their last names. It worked pretty well. Especially considering they kinda did as well.
*Alexes
Yeah, we’re still about a decade out from classrooms full of kids named “Alexa”.
The name was actually rising in popularity a bit before the damn speaker took it. If anything I’d expect it going down, getting the ‘Alexa do X’ jokes gets old FAST.
(/ Alexa-ing.)
I had a class in junior high where there were four Johns, three John C.s, and two John Campbells. We had a substitute one time. We almost got sent to the office because she was convinced we were messing with her.
Fortunately, the other John Campbell later resolved the problem when his parents got divorced and he took his mother’s maiden name.
A lot of even my mundane friends call me by my SCA name, because I answer to it as readily as I do “John”, and it’s far less ambiguous. My gaming group at one point was entirely made up of Jo(h)ns.
I have an SCA friend who has the same problem with “Jennifer”, but who made the mistake of picking an SCA name that was also really common, so we have to use both of her names to disambiguate her from all the other people who share one or the other.
I am “thejeff” to distinguish me from the other Jeffs floating around our college circle of friends.
Becky missed Other Rachel’s stealth strike for Dina’s heart
Oh oops I didn’t see the cracked door…
I’d like ‘brontosaurus’ to be the preferred name for ‘apatosaurus’.
( and I’m Jhon because I didn’t want to be Other John. )
That would be a scientific travesty with our current knowledge – Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus refer to two separate genera of dinosaurs.
If you can guarantee there will be a Brontosaur in my bag of plastic dinos, you will have my vote!
An archaeopteryx in every pot and a brontosaurus in every garage.
Amnesty for undocumented and divert all funds that were supposed to go the stupid wall to towards education and infrastructure.
I have feels for Rachel. The one with purple hair. Short Rachel. Being called ‘other’ all the time sounds demeaning :(.
Do you really want the current administration choosing four more justices, Rach?
Roz just gained SO MANY POINTS from me in panel 2
Er, panel 3
…. with or without a referendum by the territory? I’m definitely in favor of an open-invitation law where the territory can automatically choose to become a state WITH a referendum, no further approval by the federal government required, but without one feels kinda pushy.
No one said anything about without a referendum, and the island voted for statehood in the last vote so
….
*regoogles with slightly different words*
…. huh. I had not heard about the 2017 referendum. Okay then! I’ll just slink off and hide now.
Wow. That was a KILLER sales pitch. Becky is good at her job.
I love how she diffused the argument with Roz AND get the rest of the wing on her side (and make great progress in securing their votes as well) AND brainstorm more material to tweet.
For Robin, Becky is worth every dinosaur she can embellish.
She de-escalated that like a pro! Good job, Becky!
I hope this doesn’t actually get girls to vote for Robin, mostly because I don’t want her to win. I’m hoping the girls realize that just because Becky says it doesn’t mean Robin will oblige, especially since she’s clearly not be consulted.
*psst* Roz, might wanna consider another scandal a couple of days before the election, just in case Becky ends up actually being a wunderkind. You and Becky can plan something out.
There’s always that whole kissing girls on stage option.
Becky: ….ummmmm….
Dina: I’m sad to inform you that Becky has important dinosaur business she needs to attends right now. * glares daggers at Roz *
Roz knows that, she was just hoping someone else here might be interested and single.
I think a scandal might backfire. It seems like any publicity is good publicity for Robin right now, and the people Becky’s reaching might be drawn to the spectacle rather than repulsed by it.
…. of course, Becky’s only reaching like half a dozen people right now, let’s keep that in perspective.
Depends on the nature of the scandal, I guess.
Getting Robin to campaign for those things and then still not voting for her does seem like the best thing to do.
Roz has referred to Jake Manley as ‘progressive’. Considering Roz’s standards, I wonder if these are things he’s brought up in his own campaign? Normally I would doubt it since this is frigging Indiana and he and Robin were supposed to be neck and neck, but considering the recent upswell of candidates with more left leanings, I suppose it’s possible.
Becky, Robin was pretty clear you don’t get tuition, housing, and control of her message. If Robin finds out about this, you might be in deep shit.
She absolutely gets control of the message. That’s literally her job.
She doesn’t get control of the vote, that’s the issue.
Does Robin even know what Puerto Rico is?
Heck, does she even know what *statehood* is?
Other Rachel cracked me up.
Purple Rachel then? Or for a real name, we can go with Rae or Chel.
Those are all good things the dormies asked Becky for, but I’d ask to tweet that all presidential candidates have a certain number of years’ experience politically to run. It would disqualify military as well but I think it’s for the best.
I’d’ve asked for any repeated congressional investigations (as in, do-overs by the same committee being run by the same weasels who just want to influence the vote towards the Individual-1 I suspect you’re alluding to at least partly in your post) be paid for out-of-pocket by the aforementioned weasels.
Seriously, after the fourth run at the same thing, with the same evidence, by the same people, coming to the same conclusion, your strategy has to stop being “let’s do the Time Warp again” unless you’re paying for it your damn selves.
Yeah Indiv-1 is who I’m alluding to. Because I’ll be darned if we let this happen again, regardless of party affiliation.
People won’t trust a plumber to be a surgeon. So why trust a businessman to be president?
oh sweetie, you will always be the one and only Rachel to me.
Becky’s a lot more savvy than I think some of us were giving her credit for. I just kinda wonder how Robin’ll handle some of this, like, I wonder what her actual wants are. To get reelected, certainly, but beyond that, what is she loyal to?
She is like Aaron Burr: she will act according to the winds of change for her own benefit.
Hopefully that doesn’t extend to “shooting someone to death in a duel”.
Or seizing territory and maybe declaring herself emperor.
Though that’s got some serious wackiness potential. Robin MIGHT.
Money; candy
Going off Walkyverse; Her friends
Robin has made it clear she’s into politics for the perks. It’s kind of weirding her out that she should stand for anything but cash and fame.
Other Rachel, do something more impressive than main rRchel’s cynicism and angry speeches and we can talk later.
Also, I would add my own political comment for Becky: outlaw creationism and any form of intelligent design from science classes.
Hey, Comp. Sci. should at least make a nod to intelligent design!
Why? So the graduates can be frustrated and disappointed when they enter the workforce?
I think that was a joke.
If while walking through the woods I find an algorithm lying on the ground…
Surprised no one threw out “abolition of the electoral college”. Then again, maybe the more politically savy members of the hall think that’s unrealistic because it’s been tried many times and failed each time (unfortunately).
Given my state voted 4-1 on Trump, I’m not a huge fan of “The majority is always right.”
A surprising number of states have actually opted out of the Electoral College and have passed legislature that their votes go to the winner of the popular vote. Like 15.
That’s actually pretty cool.
If we can get over half the college to do that were golden.
All solid Democrat states, right?
No other state will effectively vote their vote away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
* Maryland
* New Jersey
* Illinois
* Hawaii
* Washington
* Massachusetts
* Washington D.C.
* California
* Vermont
* Rhode Island
* New York
* Conneticut
* Colorado
* Delaware
* New Mexico
We’re 70% of the way there.
It is however all solid Democratic states. The last ones will be harder to get.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it. I’ve talked it up off and on for years. It’s the only way of getting the Electoral College out of the way that’s at all viable in the short term.
Which minority do you trust more than the majority?
And the last GOP president to win a popular vote was GWB 2004. Before him, GHWB 1988.
I live in the Deep South where segregation if not a distant memory. It’s not at all an impossibility to have the electoral college turned into a tool for the reactionary Right as well as the Left.
Trump lost my 3 million votes. That’s not nearly as large as people think it is.
Uh, the EC *is* a tool for the reactionary right.
It takes a Constitutional Amendment, instead of legislation, but also, you won’t find many voters who care about it enough.
Mandate proper sex ed (not abstinence only BS) and free birth control for all.
Separation of Church and State means that religion has to stay out of science education (Creationism can be taught in Religion classes but not as a scientific theory, flat earthers don’t get a look-in).
Free at point of use national healthcare
Invest in becoming a world leader in renewable energy usage and refinement
A few ideas to start off with!
Add in some student loan forgiveness and I would vote for this platform in a single heartbeat instead of five.
And, immediately, Robin Desanto gets attacked as trying to destroy all the world’s cows… for no good reason… but, she’s obviously liberal now, so reasons don’t matter.
I advocate separation of Church and State so that the government can stay out of churches. The corporate big box churches are nothing more than shills for the Republican party to fleece the public.
“I anticipate yer needs, girl”
Becky is the best girlfriend
I mean, we already knew that from her bringing Dina a giant dinosaur plushie, but it always help to keep working on it.
I’m sorry Rachel Who is Not the Regular Rachel, but that’s probably impossible.
There’s limits to what the US Congress can do…
How about world peace instead?
I think there’s a better chance of cloning dinosaur DNA and creating ‘Jurassic Park’ for real than Congress ever doing anything positive and long-lasting with regards to world peace. Seriously … even after we knocked out Hitler and (supposedly) defeated Nazism and made Europe safe again, all it turned out that really had been accomplished was to make it easier for the next biggest bully on the block (Stalin and his form of communism) to take over.
Pfft, like they’d even TRY. The weapons manufacture lobby has pocketed most of them already.
Nope, Congress can’t declare peace. Congress can only declare war. Negotiating peace is Trump’s job.
……
*insert your own punchline here, I’m too depressed to come up with one*
Could Congress declare war on war? That might fix the problem.
Eh, why not, they declared war on terrorism, what other vague concepts could they utilize.
War on peace. War on pacifism. War on eminent domain.
SMBC theatre presents the war on war.
Also, the war on peace, the war on the war on peace, the war on making sense and the war on the POTUS.
That explains a lot.
Rachel X?
First name othe middle name r last name rachel
Meredith grasping for an implausible denial seems so quaint.
~ Some privileged dude in a pot-legal state.
I like the 4 more justices option.
Okay, so the most important question I have is this:
How would you lay out 51 stars on the flag?
hmm…six rows alternating eight and nine stars.
IIRC, the vexillology department of the US military has designs in store for flags of up to 56 stars to be put into use pending the addition of additional states.
A finger curls on the Monkey’s Paw as everyone spontaneously starts referring to Other Rachel as “Other FuckFace”
Hey, it’s Rachel! My 2nd favorite and one of my two 3rd favorite characters in the same strip (plus spoken intervention by the top favorite) in the same strip. Can we get Danny here, too?
I’m not exactly sure what more SCOTUS judges would fix. Though there’s a case to be made that a staggered increase would provide granularity, a single batch increase of 4 would have them all be nominated by the same POTUS. Right now, that would mean that by 2024 you would (most likely) be dealing with a 10-3 shitstain majority (I’m sorry, but I have little hope that RBG is going to be in the condition to keep saving your asses for 5 more years – she’s EIGHTY SIX).
Right now, obviously not.
It’s a move to be taken once Democrats regain control. It would require legislation, so it would only be possible with control of the White House and both Houses of Congress.
If Trump wins reelection and Republicans retake the House and hold the Senate, there’d be no advantage to it for them. They’ve already got a majority on the Court and as you say it’s likely there’ll be another chance to replace a liberal within 5 years.
And honestly, 2 would be sufficient. Going from a 5-4 conservative majority to a 6-5 liberal one.
Soooo… Rachel is making a wish for AT LEAST 2022 (I hear it’s pretty much impossible for Democrats to get… whichever house they don’t have right now), and more likely for 2024?
I’m not sure it’s going to be important by then, seeing as the US government is ALREADY telling courts to go fuck themselves.
Thanks.
?
I dunno who told you it was pretty much impossible for Dems to retake the senate this election, but they were wrong. There’s way more Republicans up for re-election than democrats this time, and a lot of Democrats last time were in basically impossible seats (red state Dems).
From what I recall, it’s that of the *checks internet* 22 seat the GOP holds, 19 of them were solidly won by Trump, and another is Susan Collins’. Seeing as Dems have to increase their current seat number by 3 or (far more likely) 4 to get the Senate, it’s… not looking good, at best.
Thanks.
There have been quite a few people who were in solidly Trump areas who lost their bids in 2018 midterms and special elections.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard, but it’s far from impossible. That’s why it’s important to get your American friends to volunteer, canvas, donate, etc.
This is true. The Democratic Senator and Governor in my state both won their reelection bids, despite PA flipping red in 2016. It can happen.
The Senate. And it’s not “pretty much impossible”, though it will be fairly difficult. There are a few seats I really hope get flipped this time (provided the individuals warming them are facing reelection), though.
Thanks.
Leaving aside the question of the liberal-vs-conservative count (which is important, I’m not discounting it), there’s also an argument to be made that increasing the number will decrease the importance of each particular justice, meaning that Congress is less likely to go into a seizure every time they have to nominate a new one.
I’m not sure that holds. True, more justices mean each individual justice has less influence, but that doesn’t make each single appointment less important unless the SCOTUS is already incredibly imbalanced to one side (and it would be the Republican side, because the current Democrat establishment would probably consider imbalancing the SCOTUS to be “impolite” or some shit like that). If it’s balanced, then a single appointment could make the whole thing tilt to one side.
That’s . . . not sabotage. That’s making promises the constituents want to hear with plausible deniability about being serious in regards to any specific one. At this point, it’s so obviously gonna go wrong I’m kinda thinking Willis is messing with us and it’ll turn out great.
Freshman Rachel and sophomore Rachel.
“You know, if I’m going to be the snarky miscreant, I’d like to actually be doing BAD things? It’s annoying when I skate past cops and throw them the double bird, they don’t give chase! It’s bad for my rep!”
I thought Other Rachel was the one saying the dinosaur stuff on first read.
Pfft, Carla, your family’s rich, and you live in the US. Nothing’s illegal for you.
She’s a gay ace trans lady. There’s a few things.
Such as existing.
Fair point.
Discovered identities don’t cancel out the privileges she was born with. She’s still a rich white girl.
Intersectionality.
No, they don’t cancel out being a rich white girl. But being a rich white girl doesn’t cancel out being trans either. Or gay or ace for that matter.
Her biggest privilege is having parents who support her. Much of that “rich white” privilege would have meant damn little if her parents had Toedad’s attitude. It just would have given them more tools to abuse her with.
And everyone clearly ignores the abuse of thrust, You might dislike Robins policy but when someone gives you their hand you don’t bite it.
You want to make them see another opinion you do directly, Becky is lucky she didn’t had charges placed on her before for identity deft.
“An’ keep tweetin’ whatever you were tweetin’ before”.
Becky is doing exactly her job as instructed.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/baby/
Now, the dinosaur she gave Dina on the other hand…
(although to be fair, Robin would absolutely give that her blessing)
It says “vote for deSanto” in the bottom. It’s TECHNICALLY campaign merch.
Which, as we all know, is the best type of campaign merch.
Robin’s old policies included support for legislation that would make it legal for LGBT people to be evicted or fired simply for who they are
This is not a matter of simply disagreeing with her on how taxes should work. Laws such as that serve no purpose but to make it harder for people like Becky to survive and force them back into the closet or into early graves
Even if Robin hadn’t explicitly hired Becky for tweeting things like this, “abusing her trust” is not something any of these kids should give a damn about
I personally don’t think you can sabotage Robin when all she wants is to stay Congresswoman. She doesn’t care who supports her, it’s just that appealing to the conservative base had always been reliable. That’s why she asked Becky to continue tweeting about liberal ideals, because those seem to be working too.
OOH! OOH! CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS!
Alt text; Willis, the tags have lied before. You had Jocelyne originally tagged as Joshua and you even said ‘would the tags lie’ when we found out ‘Ryan’ isn’t actually the guy’s legal name.
YES THE TAGS LIE.
THE TAGS ARE A LIE!!!
For example, according to the tags Walky is in this strip:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/doozy/
Not to negate the rest of your point, but I believe the asshole mentioned that “Ryan” is still part of his legal name…it’s just his middle name, and that’s not usually listed on student directories (which is what Dorothy and co. were looking through beforehand).
Coincidentally enough, I’m making this comment on the two-year phoniversary: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/directory/
Fair enough, poor choice of words on my part.
Y’all don’t watch enough Futurama.
Obviously the Rachels become
Rachel 1
Rachel A
Rachel Alpha?
Don’t you mean Rachel and Rachel 1.01?
No.
“Or, the Mongooses! That’s a cool team name!”
Uhm Puerto Rican statehood is only up to Puerto Rico