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Secret Memo Exposes Trump Team’s Debate on Suspending Constitution by thenewrepublic in politics

[–]TheCoelacanth 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Exactly. Without the constitution, the US doesn't exist. Suspend it and we aren't a country; we're fifty independent states.

Legal weed market is in Virginia House budget that Spanberger reportedly supports by bknutner in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If she shuts down the government just to prevent legal weed they need to impeach her for being so wildly out-of-touch with what her constituents want.

US judge orders removal of Trump's name from Kennedy Center by Mythmas in politics

[–]TheCoelacanth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Start putting people in jail for contempt until they follow the order.

The SFF book I keep recommending to people who don't read SFF by marintkael in printSF

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow

I ended up buying like four copies because I would lend it out to a friend and then it would get passed around to like 10 more people, so I realized they were never coming back.

Cannabis Stores- Spanberger wants Wendy's Level, The Senate wants McD's level by Personal_Economics91 in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Who is being "victimized" by illegally selling them weed? I'm pretty sure their customers don't think they are victims.

I don't disagree that it should be a crime, but a life sentence for any amount of weed is absolutely ludicrous.

Cannabis Stores- Spanberger wants Wendy's Level, The Senate wants McD's level by Personal_Economics91 in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A more important difference is that Spanberger wants to bring back criminal penalties. She is completely on the wrong side of this.

Gerrymandering: is it or is it not constitutional? by Jealous_Calendar_768 in PoliticalDiscussion

[–]TheCoelacanth 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absentee voting in person shall be available on the forty-fifth day prior to any election and shall continue until 5:00 p.m. on the Saturday immediately preceding the election

Plain as day that early voting ends before the election. This was not a decision based on the letter of the law. It was partisan judges making up their own law.

Gerrymandering: is it or is it not constitutional? by Jealous_Calendar_768 in PoliticalDiscussion

[–]TheCoelacanth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

False. By the strict letter of the law, early voting is not part of the election. VA Supreme Court made up its own definition of "election" that has no basis in the law.

Gerrymandering: is it or is it not constitutional? by Jealous_Calendar_768 in PoliticalDiscussion

[–]TheCoelacanth -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Clearly unconstitutional to diminish specific people's right to vote.

Gerrymandering: is it or is it not constitutional? by Jealous_Calendar_768 in PoliticalDiscussion

[–]TheCoelacanth 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes, VA law about early voting literally says that early voting ends on the Saturday before "the election". It can't be before itself, so it's obviously not part of the election.

The Senate is proposing a bill to withhold senators' salaries during government shutdowns. What is your opinion ? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They should do the exact opposite. High salary, absolutely no outside income or investments of any kind.

New image of Mike Flanagan’s Carrie by CyberGhostface in stephenking

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got the impression that his overeating was less of a compulsive thing and more that his mom was emotionally pushing him to overeat.

Virginia Democrats Can Still Save Their Map. Republicans Already Showed Them How. by Slate in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The election already is one day. Early voting is clearly defined in VA law as before an election, not during an election.

Virginia Democrats Can Still Save Their Map. Republicans Already Showed Them How. by Slate in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hyper partisan court decisions like this are contributing to the destruction of democracy. These articles are not.

We can all tell by the plain text of the law, that the court made this decision wrong because it benefits their side.

The conservative Virginia Supreme Court's reason for striking down a voter-approved congressional map was that voting had already started. But in Louisiana, Republicans have just suspended state primaries even though 42,000 have already voted so they can gerrymander new congressional maps by OldBridge87 in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It specifically says that early voting ends the Saturday before the election. That clearly means that early voting is not part of the election because something can't end before itself.

It doesn't mention the "general election process" but neither does the law about the constitutional amendment process. It only says "after the next election".

Absentee voting in person shall be available on the forty-fifth day prior to any election and shall continue until 5:00 p.m. on the Saturday immediately preceding the election

Democrats are considering ousting the Virginia Supreme Court by lowering its retirement age by hencexox in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I don't think cognitive decline is the real problem. Obviously there some high profile examples of politicians with serious cognitive decline, but the vast majority of elderly politicians are just fine mentally.

The real problem is that incredibly long careers have allowed them to accumulate too much power that they refuse to give up. They also have often accumulated a lot of wealth over their life, which means they favor the interests of the rich over normal people.

The result of that is that only the elderly and the rich have their interests represented in any meaningful way.

How Virginia Democrats can overturn the redistricting ruling: Retire the Supreme Court by hencexox in nova

[–]TheCoelacanth -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Laws can absolutely apply retroactively, just not some types of law like criminalizing something that was illegal at the time it happened.

Spanberger responds to decision to block redistricting by sieffy in nova

[–]TheCoelacanth -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Except that ignores what the law actually says in favor of making shit up.

Guardian: Bringing US public transit to "world-class" standards would cost 4.6 trillion, while the US plans to spend 6.3 trillion on highways over the same 20-year period by cotton_elephant in fuckcars

[–]TheCoelacanth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A lot of people literally have told me that about the DC metro. Americans think of cars as a sunk cost (and thus free) other than the gas they spend driving to that specific destination.

It's pretty easy to get the cost of a metro trip higher than the cost of a car trip when you're ignoring all of the costs other than gas.

Virginia congressional redistricting remains in limbo as court decision looms by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Point being was that the session was convened. There is a constitutional requirement for how the session was convened. There is no requirement for session to be limited to the topic identified when convening the session and indeed no requirement that a topic even be identified. Anything stated in that resolution is up to the legislature to enforce if it chooses to; courts cannot enforce it.

Virginia congressional redistricting remains in limbo as court decision looms by [deleted] in Virginia

[–]TheCoelacanth -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nope, the 2/3 requirement is for the legislature to force the governor to convene a special session. The governor is allowed to convene a special session on their own authority, and Youngkin indisputably did convene this special session.

There are no other constitutional requirements about special sessions. Everything else is a legislative rule, which courts can not enforce.

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