So, it seems like you're choosing to ignore the 14th amendment which is what incorporates the Bill of Rights to the states.

You can't divorce the two. The Constitution also gives SCOTUS original jurisdiction on Constitutional issues. The Supreme Court is, per the Constitution, the final arbiter of what the Constitution says (barring the invocation of the amendment process, and even there, SCOTUS is still responsible for interpreting the new Amendment in such a way that it doesn't fundamentally break the rest of the Constitution).




Goalpost-moving detected. You're seriously invoking changes in tax law as being comparable to the promotion of religion?

Read what I said again: if the basis for legislation is non-secular, then by definition it involves the elevation of a particular faith or creed over others, and the Supreme Court has ruled that that's a no-no, both at the Federal and at the state levels.

One faith or another might benefit from a given piece of legislation, but if that legislation is grounded in a secular basis, incidental benefit does not rise to the level of unconstitutional promotion or suppression of a given faith. THAT'S the point of secular government. Perfectly neutral governance may not be possible, but as long as the benefit accrues incidentally and not as the result of government overtly attempting to assist the religion in question, SCOTUS is generally going to leave it alone.




I suspect you probably hit enter before you meant to here. I'll be curious to see what you have to say.

Exactly. The equal protection clause is probably the most popularly-known clause, but No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States pretty clearly says that the protections United States citizens enjoy with regard to the federal government can't be abrogated by the several states.

Which means that, no, the First Amendment does not apply exclusively to the Federal government.

Poll-plus is the one that takes factors such as likely voters vs respondents, among other things, into account, right?

If so, isn't one of the things factored in likely turnout by demographic? And isn't there a storyline in the past few days where HRC is suddenly slumping with black voters(Trump isn't gaining from it, just that she's losing like 9-10 points of likely voters or something to that effect)? Couldn't that account for a lot of the shift?

polls-plus includes stuff that isn't necessarily part of the polls themselves, such as economic indicators. "When so-and-so leads by such-and-such with economic conditions roughly akin to the current environment, they win X% of the time" kind of thing.

Once again, this depends on your denomination. The "God has set those above in power for a reason" is generally a part of theology in the Middle Ages, but it was always with the caveat, that if the powerful run afoul of the Church, their mandate is revoked (think of the Road to Canossa where HRE Henry IV marched on his knees before the Pope to undo his excommunication). This is, btw, one of the reason that German princes embraced Protestantism so heartedly - Luther indicated that King and Church were on similar levels and that the King is also head of the Church in his own lands (something Henry VIII kind of liked as well).


That's not their argument. In fact that Supreme Court remanded (and asked the parties to work out an agreement) based on the Little Sisters of the Poor saying that they wouldn't feel their rights are violated if they can sign up for a plan that doesn't include paying for contraception and the government pays for it instead.


If they don't have to provide a plan that offers coverage, but the government provides it instead, they would be completely fine with that. They object to the filing of a form (EBSA Form 700) that authorizes the insurance company to pay for contraception. And they shouldn't have to do so. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, no conservative, offered the Little Sisters of the Poor a temporary injunction until the case is resolved allowing them to simply inform the Secretary of Health and Human Services of their objections - and they were fine with that.

So what's wrong with making that the procedure to opt-out?

And to be fair, the members of Little Sisters of the Poor probably shouldn't be getting contraception anyways.... they are nuns ;).


I don't see why. Little Sisters of the Poor and others filing suit are actually religious organizations. I'm not entirely sure why they weren't given the same protections as churches. Religious organizations already have protections that don't flow to private businesses (namely in hiring).

The 14th Amendment came around in the 1860s. Brian Schwartz was talking about the meaning of the 1st Amendment when it was written (in a discussion about politicians who are promoting pro-Christian policies - and, btw, depending on the policy, it may not be a violation of SCOTUS rulings at all), so that doesn't apply.

Thanks.

At this point I've seen enough variants of analysis from enough places that, if the specifics aren't in front of me, which name is being used for what is sort of ... elusive to me.

A friend on social media mentioned Gary Johnson visiting Atlanta today, which prompted me to look something up. He's polling around 3% in the state, I figure that'll end up with him in the 2%+ territory. Rather poor in the big picture but it's actually a high water mark for the party if he does. I did this quick summary for that conversation, figured I might as well share it here just for kicks.
------------

For him, there's (I guess) a fair chance he'll do better than any (L) candidate in state history. I figure he'll end up right around 2 percent, maybe 2 and change. That's relatively heady performance compared to those who came before him.

1.16% in 2012
0.73% in 2008 (with GA native Bob Barr no less)
0.60% in 2004
1.40% in 2000
0.80% in 1996 (finished 4th, Perot had 6.4% for third)
0.31% in 1992 (finished 4th, Perot had 13.34% for third)
0.47% in 1988
????? in 1984 (no candidate on ballot here?)
1.00% in 1980

A lot of Trumps surge in the polls can be attributed to Johnson voters switching. Even though the guy is a bit of a nut job and hasn't done himself any favors it's really hard to argue there isn't a massive ceiling for third parties. Historically unpopular candidates and a pissed off electorate and he's still only polling at 3%. Trump comfortably ahead of McMullin in UT as well

Your last statement is very interesting because I'd say that's exactly what happened with the 14th Amendment. But more on that in a bit. You are correct that the Supreme Court's rulings are binding in terms of how the Constitution is applied. As far as 'divorcing the two', you not only can but you have to. The only way that SCOTUS's rulings would always reflect the Founder's intent would be if A) They actually intended to, which often they have not, and B) They were infallible. I mean, they've contradicted themselves at various points. Two contradictory rulings cannot both reflect the Founder's intent self-evidently. That doesn't make what SCOTUS says an inch less binding, of course, but the two things are simply quite different, if related considerations. Which brings me to ...


Does it? Again, this depends on what we are talking about, modern SCOTUS rulings, or intent and interpretation at the time it was ratified.


Interestingly enough, those who wrote it and ratified it didn't agree. Not only that, but to my earlier point, SCOTUS didn't either. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, and eight years later in United States v. Cruikshank, the longstanding(i.e., Barron v. Baltimore, etc.) view that, specifically with regard to the 1st and 2nd Amendments in Cruikshank, they did not in fact apply beyond the federal level. The equal protection was not held to mean anything like what you describe it as for several decades later -- it's modern meaning did not even begin to 'evolve'(terrible word to use about the Constitution, btw) -- until, depending on how you measure it, the 1920s. Moreover, they knew exactly what they were doing when they did it(see the writings of Justice William O. Douglas on the subject).


I'm not sure where you get this idea. I'm not comparing that, I'm comparing the boundaries you are describing, as here:


I think I got it the first time :). And my point stands. As you yourself have described it, there are two standards here. One standard for secular belief, and a different, more restrictive standard for religious belief. If secular basis for a law is ok, but religious basis is not, then this isn't about, as you phrased it, 'perfectly neutral governance'. When a basic principle is to have such a split standard, there's not even an attempt at neutrality being made; the religious point of view is demonstrably made to be inferior to the secular one. That's the point of the tax law example. It's not to make any statement about tax law vs. whatever religious law you might imagine per se; but to point out the fact that secular reasoning and religious reasoning are being treated fundamentally different, and further that secular reasoning behind laws does exactly the same thing being prohibited(promoting or undermining one group in society or another).

Yes.

May Antonin rest in peace.

That was probably a little to flippant, but it's been a long week. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many scholars who support a no incorporation view of the 14th Amendment today. Even Scalia, whose views I think you are emulating, was accepting, though sometimes critical, of the reality of the incorporation doctrine. And leading academics on the conservative side like Akhil Amar endorse some form of incorporation.

On this issue I'm more with Thomas than Scalia. Not a bad try though :). It's also worth pointing out that the reason Scalia was pro-incorporation was not because he believed the 14th actually supported it ... in his words, 'it is based on an interpretation of the Due Process Clause that the words will not bear.' Rather, it was based on the stability argument, i.e. stare decisis.

Not sure this is the right place for this but...

{Naive Guy Alert}

So we are still burning churches in America in 2016?

{Naive Guy Alert}

I am not a religious person. Intellectually, I tell myself "Of course, someone would burn the church to cast Trump supporters in a bad light or a Trump supporter actually did it". I also know that synagogues and mosques have also been victims of this sort of terrorism. All that being said, reading the headline about a church being burned hit me in a rather vulnerable emotional spot today.

Unfortunately black churches have been subject to burning and vandalism over the last decade.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

There's a way to set up a voter ID law that I wouldn't oppose, but the supporters of these bills give away the game when they lard on all sorts of other provisions designed to supress the vote. I had no idea NC had this new law:

How else would this work? I mean, it's sounds like an accused-friendly civil procedure the way you describe it.

An accusation is made, round one of that requires a certain burden of proof to be met before the accused is even troubled with a court appearance. Only after & if that burden has been met is there any responsibility on the part of the accused. Failure to respond to an accusation being treated as an admission is pretty common stuff afaik, that's exactly how small claims court works in Georgia for example. If you fail to respond, the judgement is automatically in favor of the plaintiff.

wouldnt the system be easily overwhelmed and abused?

Exactly. Leaving it open to citizen challenges makes the whole thing an obvious voter suppression tactic. Generally government attempts to purge voter registration roles remove way more active voters than non-eligible voters and this is bound to be way worse.

Kinda like Salem witch trials...

Except it doesn't.

Each case has to be ruled to have probable cause before anything happens (based on the snippet you posted). And no one, based on that clip at least, is removed if they provide adequate evidence to the contrary.

This has to be one of the sillier hypothetical slippery slope arguments I've heard in a while honestly. Don't be so desperate to invent shit.

No question this one was politically motivated, but the last time we discussed this I recall being shocked at how many "churches", both black and otherwise, there were across the South. A lot are of the one room & homemade variety, which is why investigators have a hard time telling if many are arson or just poor construction/upkeep - Fires in Black Churches, Possibly Caused by Arson, in Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida - The Atlantic

Toss me on Jon's side here. If a given local panel is corruptly partisan the law is dangerous, but if you have competent people who take it seriously they should be able to weed out any large scale harassment and abuse.

Appropriate evidence includes returned mail.

At least a federal judge also agrees that this looks like something out of Jim Crow.

I absolutely believe that the RNC or DNC would put together a team of citizens' who would simply challenge every voter ni a county/district that didn't fit their bill to clog the system and hopefully stimey whatever votes they can.

Yeah, tough imagining that is the case anywhere.

Trump was at 32.9% on 538 Polls Plus early this morning. He's up to 34.3% now.

Yep. Continuing to creep up and they've got him slightly favored in Florida and North Carolina now. Saw an analysis on there a few days ago that basically said for him to a real significant chance of winning, he's got to get the overall within two points. Right now it's down to 3.2, so closing ... but not quite there. Of course, if Clinton's early voting and ground game are as big of advantages as they could be, that won't be enough. Silver also thinks that there's quite possibly more uncertainty in the polling in general this year.

As a Democrat, this feels like Fergie Time from an old Manchester United home game. You somehow have the lead, but the ref puts 8 minutes of stoppage time on the clock and you still have 5 minutes left.

Also, let's just assume Hillary wins for a moment. Is there a chance the Dems don't run her in 2020, if she's alive and healthy. She's struggling to take out Trump, who most of America claims to hate. I can't imagine how she could expect to win re-election if the Republicans manage to run an not completely insane candidate.

Dola:

I also tell myself every day that I'm not going to look at the polls and I won't even bother reading anything about the election. That lasts about 27 seconds after I wake up, then I sink into even more of a depression.

A lot of this is down to the media having a Goldfish memory with regards to incidents - despite being purely 'hot air' the email fiasco with the FBI which has no evidence or actual substance has acted like a serious torpedo ... and they appear to have conveniently forgotten the numerous incidents which Trump has been involved in both from the past (Pussy video), present (numerous insults and scandals during the campaign) and future (ongoing litigation for fraud and rape) ... because y'know emails.

To me this is simply indicative of it being important to the media that the race runs close because there will be more 'bums on seats' reading and watching if that is the case ... the sad thing (for me at least) will be if their steering of the narrative leads to a Trump victory.

I mean, your governor must be PRAYING that HRC wins this one. :p

Indeed. The media seems to love to give Trump free air time. And I do like that this whole if Clinton is struggling to put Trump away, then a non-insane candidate would destroy her narrative seems to forget that Trump WIPED THE FLOOR with all those non-insane up and comers in the Republican Party.

Plurality = "wiped the floor."

Nope. Not buying it.

I'm not counting Guam, Virgin Islands, or N. Mariana Islands in this calculation.

Early primaries, Trump wins 3 of 4 but 2 are open primaries.

Super Tuesday 1, Trump wins 7 of 11, all 7 are open primaries. At that point he's 1-4 in closed primaries and has only lost Texas as an open primary.

Between Super Tuesdays Trump wins 5 of 11, 2 of them are open primaries. He's now 4-10 in closed primaries going into Super Tuesday 2.

Super Tuesday 2, Trump wins 4 of 5. Florida is the only closed primary. He's now 5-10 in closed primaries and 12-2 in open primaries.

He didn't dominate, and he probably didn't even win amongst GOP primary voters.

It's really hard to reconcile these polls with all this talk of Republicans "crossing over" to reject him. I guess it's some combination of Trump supporters staying in the closet, and independents' greater hatred of Clinton.

It's just amazing how that number goes up literally every few hours or so. It's even higher now.

Wow, i feel like she's going to blow this.

A plurality of 44.9%, when the second closest was 25.1% (Cruz), and after that was 13.8% Kasich and 11.3% Rubio. Followed by Ben Carson at 2.75% and every one else under 1%... yeah, that's wiping the floor with them. I mean the closest person came within 20 points of him.

While it seems to make the race closer, the bad math for Trump is that in order to win he needs to win either New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, or Wisconsin. 538 has ALL of those states at 65% (NH) or above for Clinton. That's tough to switch in less than a week.

Well, if you want to call that "wiping the floor," then go 'head, hoss. :lol:

He won a bunch of open primaries, lost most of the closed ones, and then pulled away at the end when most had dropped out. He got the GOP nomination, but it's highly suspect to say he was the choice of GOP voters at least through the second Super Tuesday.

Primaries are primaries. With a highly contested Democratic primary, I don't think you can claim that Democrats were coming over to do an "Operation Chaos". These folks in open primaries were folks on the right who preferred to call themselves in Independent, but if they lived in closed primary state, they'd register as Republican.

Trump is going to get 80% or more of the GOP vote. He's the choice of an overwhelming majority of the GOP. Kudos to those that don't vote for him, but it's absolutely fair to say he represents the will of the GOP.

True. However, if his momentum continues unimpeded he's actually somewhat likely to get there(which I shudder at, though perhaps not as much as some). For example, five days ago they had Trump down by 2.4 in Nevada ... now it's a tie there. And Trump is now down by 2.5 in New Hampshire, so if that(or Penn, or whatever) keeps tipping his way ... I think it's close enough to start getting concerned at this point. The kind of move we're seeing right now towards Trump is quite unusual historically at this point in the campaign -- I thought it was over 2-3 weeks ago. Still roughly 6-7% undecideds, and they are going to play a major role as well.

Been watching 538's website for several days and it looks like New Hampshire has been moving towards Trump quickly. A few days ago, it was over 75%. Now it's at 65%. At the rate it's going, it is possible for it to drop to 50/50 or even lean towards Trump by Tuesday.

And all it takes to really tip the scales is for a majority of the "otherwise-would-vote-for-Trump" Gary Johnson voters to flip to Trump, while the "otherwise-would-vote-for-Clinton" Johnson voters to stay with their pick.


Also, I feel like Clinton's message, at least in my area (PA), has gotten stale. For at least the last full month, the ads for Clinton have been all the same one. It's an ad showing Trump saying several things, like "I would bomb the shit out of them" and "And you can tell them to go fuck themselves", etc. That's it. They could have spent the last 2 months running a different ad every week and not run out of material, but it's just been the same ad over and over. Nothing at all about Trump University, nothing at all about the Trump Foundation, nothing about his taxes, nothing about how he doesn't actually have a plan for anything, just "I would bomb the shit out of them" and "I know more about ISIS than the generals, believe me" over and over.

She's not going to blow it. He's not going to blow it.
Neither is going to hit a game-winning homer either.

It all comes down to turnout, who decides to show up on Tuesday.

Look how little impact the endless campaigning & advertising has had. Very little change in voter preference since January.

At this point both candidates are subject to the whims & moods of their respective voting blocks. I'm not at all sure that the candidates aren't just twisting in the wind on those whims at this point, simply pretending that what they do between now & then matters in order to have something to keep themselves busy.

I'm pretty much with you on this point (which I'm seeing & responding to largely in isolation, I haven't even gotten back to whatever post brought this up).

It was a pretty thorough victory when all was said & done.

Also, something that could affect PA. There's a SEPTA strike going on right now in Philadelphia. It has basically crippled public transportation in the city, which is heavily pro-Democrat. A lot of people might not be able to get to the polls on Tuesday if the strike isn't over by then. PA does not have early voting or no-excuse absentee voting.

If you look at NH over time, the only time it was ever for Trump was after the GOP Convention. Even at Clinton's lows in late Sept, she was still at 59% chance of victory in NH. I would argue that that is her floor in the state.