[Parity of SCOTUS justices set to count of circuit courts in 1869 when there were 9. Now there is 13.] What are we waiting for?
A similar argument could be made for the number of people each House of Representatives member represents.
What are we waiting for? For a majority of the people in power in Congress to voluntarily give up the power they perceive the situation grants them. Sometimes it seems like altruism and the fabled "American Way" are dead, but nobody who has grasped power wants to give up power (something unfathomable to the powerless until they manage to empower themselves). It's very human, and it can work to promote human ideals or human veniality. Guess to which side of the pendulum swings today, though remember that's our perspective.
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Kristin Kobes du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne and history professor at Calvin College, speaks here about what her local church and other Christian Reformed Churches in the US and Canada are now going through. Their denomination is shoving them out unless they agree to a confessional statement requiring them to condemn same-sex relationships.
She shares a sermon her pastor, Len Vander Zee, has just preached, speaking of the turmoil in many churches and the nation as a whole today, and asking if we're saying "peace, peace, when there is no peace." Pastor Vander Zee's conclusion:
"The church has, for a long, long time, had a problem with power."
Key sectors of the Christian church in the US are right now drunk with the lust to acquire power — power to hurt, punish, and exclude others and call this holy, he says. His conclusion,
"What is the fruit of this cult of Christian power and domination? It doesn’t look much like the fruit of the Spirit. It seems to breed ugly, divisive, and authoritarian rhetoric and action--all in the name of Christ."
"So, let’s no longer say, 'Peace, peace, when there is no peace.' There’s something deeply wrong with the church today. And it’s profoundly connected with the use of power and authority, the very things that Jesus called us away from."
They want to fuse church and state to give them power to hurt, punish, and exclude others, and call this holy.
The court's ruling unwinds one of the few actions the federal government has taken in recent years to combat #GunViolence, as Republican opposition in Congress has made comprehensive #firearms restrictions highly unlikely. The case did NOT involve the #2ndAmendment, but was one of several before the justices this term involving #federal#regulatory#power.
The #Project2025 plan calls for a sweeping reorganization of the executive branch, one that would concentrate more #power in #Trump’s hands. At the #EPA, it recommends eliminating the office of #environmental#justice, which was created in 2022 to address the #pollution that disproportionately harms poor & minority communities.
'Georgia Is Our Laboratory': Inside Trump's Plan to Rig 2024
Team #Trump sees #Georgia as 'a road map' for putting Trump's heads-I-win-tails-you-lose philosophy of #elections into practice
The Peach State is unique—it's the sole battleground state in which the #Republican Party has total #control over the levers of #power: a trifecta in state #House, #Senate, & governorship
In a #new, secret recording, the #SupremeCourt justice suggests partisan funding is to blame for coverage of justices’ undisclosed luxury #gifts
In a new recording, #SCOTUS Justice Samuel #Alito lashes out at the news organization #ProPublica, describing the news organization’s #Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the #SupremeCourt as driven by #political animus, insisting: “They don’t like our decisions.”
The #SupremeCourt’s 9 unelected jurists are entrusted w/ vast powers to shape individual & collective rights in America. In 2024, #ProPublica won a #Pulitzer Prize for its
“groundbreaking & ambitious reporting” on the high court & “how a small group of politically influential #billionaires wooed justices w/lavish gifts & travel.”
In essence, #Alito is now accusing #ProPublica of being unduly influenced by the #media org’s own financial patrons. A spox for ProPublica defended its investigative #journalism to RollingStone. “ProPublica exposes abuses of #power no matter which party is in charge ‘ our newsroom operates w/fierce #independence … No donors are made aware of stories before they are published, nor do they have a say as to which stories reporters pursue.”
"After that conversation at the bar, Frerick realised that what was happening in the pork industry — this huge consolidation of power and wealth — was happening throughout the US food system.
When he started investigating, he found that a handful of US families controlled most of the US's food production and distribution system, including meat, dairy, grains, fruit and groceries."
>> Depending on the response from #SCOTUS & Congress, Trump’s plans could upend the balance of #power between the 3 branches of the federal #government.
Nobody is going to let #Trump be a king if he is re-elected. His benefactors also have #GOP and SCOTUS in their pocket 👀
Once he is elected for a second term, he can't throw his weight around as he did in his first term. Trump has to be really careful with his VP choice, unless that choice is also made for him by someone else 😀
A 2nd #Trump admin could #weaponize existing government agencies to dismantle democracy itself.
This article is part of “Project 2025: The Plot Against #America,” a Nation special issue devoted to unpacking the right’s vast & chilling program for a 2nd Trump term.
Instead of focusing on #VoterSuppression, the manipulation of #election processes by domestic & foreign agents, & other genuine threats to #democracy, Mandate for Leadership’s authors would have these agencies do the bidding of #Trump & his #MAGA movement. That’s a formula for giving Trump the #authoritarian#power he seeks—not through an explicit crushing of electoral democracy, but by “reforming” it in precisely the way that the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy warns is most dangerous.
“Is every House cmte controlled by #Republicans [ab]using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” #StephenMiller demanded. “Is every Republican DA starting every investigation they need to right now?”
“Every facet of #Republican Party #politics & #power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe w/Marxism & beat these Communists,” Miller said, using the catchall slurs #Trump allies routinely use against #Democrats.
THREAD: This might sound crazy, but in Ursula von der Leyen's official schedule, which you can view online, there wasn’t a single meeting with environmental activists listed at any time in the past year. What we did find, in the past 4 months alone, were 3 separate meetings with farming groups.
#Biden calls #America’s democratic values the “grounding wire of our global power” & its #alliances “our greatest asset.” …#Trump, called for withdrawing American forces in #Europe & #Asia & has promised… to cut loose even our closest #allies if they don’t do as he tells them. …Trump sees all countries as unreliable, the relations between them #transactional. That sentiment has spread throughout a #GOP that once championed America’s values abroad…
During his 40 months in office, events have tested #Biden’s vision of American world leadership. #Alliances haven’t been enough to win a new European #war in #Ukraine. US #power & leverage haven’t prevented a #humanitarian catastrophe in the #MiddleEast, marked by alleged #WarCrimes. #Putin is trying to assemble an axis of #autocrats from #Tehran to #Beijing. In #China, the US faces an adversary potentially its equal in economic & military power intent on tearing down the American #GlobalOrder.
#Biden, who is the most experienced #ForeignPolicy President in a generation, believes that role is in #America’s interest. “When we strengthen our #alliances, we amplify our #power as well as our ability to disrupt #threats before they can reach our shores,” he said…. To judge the merit of Biden’s plan to sustain American world leadership, voters can look to his record: what he has accomplished, where he has fallen short, & how he intends to build on his work in a 2nd term.
#POTUS#Biden, asked whether #Israel PM Benjamin #Netanyahu was prolonging the #war in #Gaza in an effort to hold on to #power & stay in office, said that he believed “there is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”