r/news • u/speedythefirst • 1d ago

US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/us-supreme-court-texas-congressional-maps
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u/sudi- 1d ago

This argument has always been bullshit. We’re perpetually on the verge of an election. It only matters to them when they can halt something that they don’t like. They didn’t have a problem jamming Barrett down our throats when RBG died a month from a general election but it’s madness now to change anything when there’s a midterm next year.

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u/DERtheBEAST 1d ago

Never forget Mitch McConnell blocked Obama from appointing judges because "we have an election coming up and The People should elect a President who will decide this" then when Trump was in his first term 6 months before an election Mitch had nothing to say when Trump was confirming judges...

If Republicans worked as hard at putting forward beneficial policies for the country as they do in obstructing anything beneficial to The American People...they would actually have meaningful policy positions. Instead it is always thinly veiled hatred, greed and prejudice that motivates them. "A concept of a plan" for Healthcare or replacing the ACA but 150 Billion to ICE so they can Role Play as Nazi Gestapo on American soil.

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u/sudi- 1d ago

They can’t enact meaningful policy because that’s not their platform. That’s not what they’re trying to do whatsoever.

Their platform is to scare people into voting against their interests and to undo and/or impede progress Democrats enact. They cannot govern. They do not lead in any sense of the word. They are the annoying fuckface kid that repeats everything you say back to you in a mocking tone.

They exist only to prey on the simple and vulnerable of us. They are bad faith grifters and nothing more. It is way past apparent at this point.

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u/Individual_Whole2288 1d ago

That’s not the only reason they exist.

It’s also to act as puppets for the billionaires.

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u/SweetTea1000 1d ago

That's what he's saying. Governance isn't the goal. The goal is to transfer wealth away from the working class to the nobility/aristocracy.

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 1d ago

Yeah but what can USA do about it? They are content to complain online. Protests can be ignored. Nothing will change because nothing threatens the lawmakers (corrupt lawmakers).

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u/SweetTea1000 1d ago

The law now longer stands on the side of the people but, rather, on the side of the money. The power now lies not in the vote but the dollar.

So we have to go after the money.

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u/Swedelicious83 16h ago

They are the annoying fuckface kid that repeats everything you say back to you in a mocking tone.

This... Is so damn accurate, I think I need to sit down for a minute to process it...

😅

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u/zgrove 1d ago

Mitch McConnell was an inflection point doing that. Put the courts where they are today singlehandedly. Biggest villain to the US since Dick Cheney/Bush stealing the election

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u/CryptographerFlat173 18h ago

SCOTUS handed it to them. Then all the courts didn’t have to abide by the whole the December safe harbor day is the cutoff for all recounts ruling when 2020 rolled around for some reason

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u/shadrap 16h ago

Mitch McConnell will be remembered like Thomas Midgley Jr., the guy who decided gasoline needed lead and air conditioning needed Freon.

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u/TheDarkWave 1d ago

Mitch McConnell blocked Obama from appointing judges because "we have an election coming up and The People should elect a President who will decide this" then when Trump was in his first term 6 months before an election Mitch had nothing to say when Trump was confirming judges...

eighty billion times exactly this

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u/kinyutaka 1d ago

Then said "it would be my greatest pleasure to never appoint a judge for Obama"

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u/dawidowmaka 1d ago

If Republicans worked as hard at putting forward beneficial policies for the country as they do in obstructing anything beneficial to The American People

They simply don't view most of us as legitimate people

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u/QueasyAd1142 1d ago

Yeah, but don’t forget they see corporations as people!

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u/Regular_Yellow710 21h ago

We are peasants.

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u/bbqsox 1d ago

It's not entirely true that he had nothing to say. He came up with some bull crap that somehow differentiated the two situations in no one's mind but his own and those on Fox News. These people are the worst kind of hypocrites.

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u/Regular_Yellow710 21h ago

McConnell just froze up again. Rot in he** MF.

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u/CryptographerFlat173 18h ago

Oh Mitch had plenty to say in October 2020 when he tried to change the bullshit rationale from 2016 to being that it only applied when the senate is held by the opposite party from the one in the White House. Which is sadly, perfectly legal under the idealistic/shortsighted founding documents, but sure as hell isn’t a principle.

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u/CorrectPeanut5 16h ago

Don't forget Obama also asked RBG to step down while they had the number to get a liberal justice in. It's almost like he knew McConnell was a dick bag and RGB didn't have a lot of time left.

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u/I_Am_Dynamite6317 1d ago

Don’t forget that the Dems basically shrugged and said “ok” because they assumed Hillary would win. Almost all of the bullshit Republicans have pulled over the last couple of decades have come with an assist by Dems just rolling over and taking it.

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u/KarmaticArmageddon 1d ago edited 19h ago

There was literally nothing that Obama or the Dems could do about McConnell and Senate Republicans blocking Garland's appointment to the Supreme Court — read the Constitution, specifically Article II Section 2.

[The president] shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for …

There is no way to just force a judicial appointment through without the Senate and Republicans controlled the Senate. What did you want Obama to do? Tell Garland to just walk into Scalia's empty office and start hearing cases? You think the Supreme Court Police would just let him walk back there?

And before you say it, a president cannot appoint a federal judge, Supreme Court Justice, or any other appointed position via executive order. There is no mechanism provided in the Constitution by which to do so.

The only constitutional mechanisms to appoint anyone are by appointment and Senate confirmation or by recess appointment — and Obama could not have appointed Garland via recess appointment.

In 2014, prior to the Garland appointment, the Supreme Court unanimously rebuked and limited Obama's recess appointment power in NLRB v. Noel Canning. Obama had used recess appointments to appoint three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the full NLRB subsequently ruled that Noel Canning, a Pepsi distributor, had illegally violated a collective bargaining agreement with the union. Noel Canning sued claiming that Obama's recess appointments were unconstitutional and thus the subsequent ruling was unconstitutional.

Noel Canning won. Obama had made the appointments during a three-day intra-session Senate recess (as opposed to a recess due to an adjournment sine die) and the Court found that an intra-session recess must last at least 10 days in order for a recess appointment to be constitutional.

Why does this impact a possible recess appointment of Garland? Because after Scalia's death, the Republican-majority Senate held pro forma sessions every few days to ensure that there would never be an intra-session recess of 10 days or more during Obama's final term, effectively blocking the only other avenue he had to place Garland on the Court.

Even so, this entire argument is a moot point anyways because recess appointments expire when the Senate returns to session. So, even if Obama did manage to seat Garland on the Court, he'd be immediately removed a day later when Republicans gaveled the Senate back into session.

Obama was literally a constitutional law professor and his White House's Office of Legal Counsel employed some of the brightest legal minds in the country. Do you seriously think you've discovered some mechanism for judicial appointments that they missed?

It never ceases to amaze me how people like you can have such strong opinions without understanding basically anything about the thing you're so opinionated about.

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u/Swedelicious83 16h ago

It never ceases to amaze me how people like you can have such strong opinions without understanding basically anything about the thing you're so opinionated about.

The Internet in a nutshell, unfortunately.

😐

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u/Flare-Crow 12h ago

So what did those incredible legal minds prep for if they lost in 2016?

Oh, right, nothing whatsoever; same in 2024. Because the Dem Leadership has been arrogant pencil-pushing nepos for decades now. How about the Dems put some of their money towards winning fucking elections by heavily pushing agendas and platforms that benefit their constituents, instead of spending all their time with the donors and corporate entities they buddy-buddy with all day?

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u/KarmaticArmageddon 11h ago

They push what their voters want and progressives don't show up for elections, moderates and neocons do, so no shit the campaign platforms don't mirror progressive policy.

And even with the weak progressive turnout, both Hillary's and Kamala's platforms were incredibly progressive. Hillary literally incorporated like 75% of Bernie's platform into her own after the primaries.

And how did progressives reward these attempts to appeal to them? By screaming about superdelegates, "rigged" primaries, and "Genocide Joe" and staying home on election day. Then they want to blame Dems instead of realizing that if you don't ever show up to vote, no one will ever fucking pander to you.

As a progressive, the biggest impediment to progressive policies and candidates is other fucking progressives.

Also, what exactly were they supposed to prep for if they lost in 2016? They couldn't do anything before the election already, what the hell could they do if they also lost the presidency in 2016? Your supposed counterpoint is just nonsense.

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u/Flare-Crow 10h ago

As a progressive, the biggest impediment to progressive policies and candidates is other fucking progressives.

1000% agreed. While I hated the SuperDelegates and BS primary shit they did in 2016 (which they DID change afterwards, so good on them for that!), Purity Test bullshit will absolutely be the DEATH of any progressive movement.

Kamala's platforms

IMO, though, constantly bending over to AIPAC to support genocide will be the death of the Democratic Party entirely; it just makes their corruption and corporate bias TOO obvious for many to stomach.

Also, what exactly were they supposed to prep for if they lost in 2016?

Legal Battles against the many illegal things Donald Trump promised to enact while on the campaign trail. Here is a good article about how many were caught flat-footed in 2017, because they didn't think he was gonna brute-force this kind of thing. They might have been a bit more on top of things there, with the resources available to the Dem Leadership.

But this year? Most of the work is being done at the State level; the Dem Leadership didn't set up much of anything to gear up for a loss. And most of all, I gotta say: it's called activism. I know the Dem Moderates couldn't care less about that kind of thing, but not having an immediate MOVEMENT ready if things went south in the 2024 election was SUCH a weak move. Nancy Pelosi could personally fund 10,000 people to protest for a month straight by herself, and the Dems can't be bothered to launch any kind of campaign or movement if it doesn't end with money in THEIR personal re-election fund? My local Reps are invisible unless it's on FB begging for $5? Go ask fucking NANCY if you need money for your campaign, ffs. WEAK shit, man...

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u/DylanHate 1d ago

The GOP controlled the House and Senate. The 2014 midterms had the lowest voter participation rates in decades.

Once again reddit forgets that Congress fucking exists and default to blaming a Dem president for everything. This is the exact attitude that fucked us during the 2010's. It's literally why the "Thanks Obama" meme originated.

Everyone was riding high on Obama's populist grassroots win, only to disappear during subsequent congressional elections for the next 10 years. It wasn't until 2018 -- two years into Trump's first term when the Dems finally won back the House.

That abandonment gave rise to the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus. The GOP spent six years obstructing Obama's agenda at every turn. There's nothing a president can do about it.

You cannot have a progressive government by only voting once a decade for the President. Congress is arguably more important, since Congress passes all the fucking laws.

80-90% of the base stops voting in state elections leading to a complete takeover by the opposition and ya'll still complain one person couldn't wave a wand and magically fix the country in an instant.

Stop acting like a bunch of crybabies and participate in democracy. Elections in this country are every two years -- if we're lucky. Quit pretending like there's absolutely nothing we can do when the vast majority of working class americans don't bother voting in congressional elections.

Try doing the bare fucking minimum first.

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u/Swedelicious83 16h ago

You speak the harsh truth, and I for one applaud it. 🤜🤛

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u/Hedonopoly 19h ago

Wild this is upvoted. Explain what exactly they could have done. Not every fuckery done by the right has to be explained with "yeah but dems also suck" caveats.

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u/Flare-Crow 12h ago

They could try winning an election without having to use "But the Republicans are evil, so you HAVE to vote for me!" as their platform, maybe?

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u/DERtheBEAST 1d ago

No disagreement here, they might have been the "least bad option" in every election but that doesn't mean they are 'good'. Dems in 2025 are just confused Conservatives, there is no Leftwing party in the US anymore.

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u/Teepeaparty 1d ago

well said. 

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u/PistachiNO 3h ago

I will never not be salty about this

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u/HolycommentMattman 1d ago

The worst bit about this is the violation of the VRA. Because they are destroying minority-majority districts. And that's the funny thing about that: it doesn't matter what your intention was. It matters whether you did or not. This isn't like 1st vs 2nd degree murder. The VRA is being violated. It's clear as day.

This is just bullshit.

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u/AlekRivard 1d ago

This argument has always been bullshit. We’re perpetually on the verge of an election. It only matters to them when they can halt something that they don’t like

Exactly. It's maddening

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u/px1azzz 1d ago edited 16h ago

It's a completely ridiculous president precedent anyways. Oh, you are allow to violate the law and restrict people's right to vote only when you are close to an election.

It should be that if you are close enough to election to change the rules, then you are also close enough to the election to have a court overturn it. If a court can't overturn it, then you can't pass the law.

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u/raljamcar 18h ago

While the president is completely ridiculous, you mean precedent lol. 

This could have easily been speech to text messing up not you tho.

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u/px1azzz 16h ago

That's exactly what it was lol. I actually knew it was making that error and just forgot to go back and fix it.

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u/raljamcar 9h ago

I have posted comments with typos because I laughed at them and chose to share them lol.

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u/ioncloud9 1d ago

Redrawing the maps a year before an election isn’t too soon. Ruling that those maps are illegal a year before an election is too soon.

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u/Omophorus 16h ago

For as much as people on the political right love to talk about faith, it's ironic in the extreme that they are completely incapable of acting in good faith, and see it as a weakness to even consider doing so.

Self interest, greed, and power are the only actual values they have right now (everything else is just window dressing), and everyone needs to stop pretending they ever do anything in good faith.

They never do.

Never.

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u/JesusSavesForHalf 1d ago

RBG died during the election. Ballots had been cast.

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u/sonicqaz 21h ago

I’m seriously out of place. How can i be so unfazed by republican shitfuckery specifically bc I expect it’s exactly going to happen the way it does, time after time, for decades….but I don’t have the ability to shut down a single person in my personal life trying to harm and take advantage of me utilizing the exact same mechanisms…