2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Derec]

First of all, El Sayed's country is the USA.

Abdul considers himself an "Egyptian American". I would say he is culturally more Egyptian/Muslim than American despite his birthplace.

This whole thing sound like six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

More like one degree. He spoke at an Islamist conference with speakers who are explicitly pro-terrorism, as the article expounded on.

Note that your Ilk wasn't phased by Adam Hamawy getting the nomination either. He was an associate of the terrorist leader Omar Abdel-Rahman (aka "the Blind Sheikh").

DSA are turning into a reverse watermelon - red on the outside, green on the inside.

 

[Elixir]

I don’t know why our indigenous population - (you know, the people whose land we white people stole because they were savages and we had guns?) - is totally unrepresented on the SC. That doesn’t seem fair.

 

[laughing dog]

You’ve presented no evidence that DSA +DSA adjacent comprise a sufficient fraction to have real influence. That’s hand waving.

I have already mentioned that the NY state legislature is already pretty far left given the legislation they are passing. Legislation like the bail deform.
Are you really going to deny that the current legislature is left and is about to become even more so?

You keep shifting between the nation and NY but mentioning a handwaved opinion is not hard evidence of anything but the opinion.

 

[Toni]

I honestly do not understand what you believe MCAT scores have to do with choosing a black woman for the USSC.

Only considering black women for SCOTUS/Veep/Senate seat from California is the result of the same identity politics as discriminating against white and Asian applicants in med school admissions for example.

Something I learned within 48 hours of being on campus as a freshman is that nobody gave a fuck about my perfect grades and stellar test scores. Definitely not my professors who only cared about how I did in their class, on their exams. Oh, and that I did not cheat or cause them extra work or trouble.

What does that have to do with the fact that admission standards are significantly higher for some races/ethnicities than others?

What dues admissions standards for medical school have to do with nominations for USSC justices?

My point is that test scores are point measures only and GPAs measure past performance of a student in a subsection of course offerings in a particular school. Either may be predictive across a population of future academic success but certainly prediction dues not always meet reality.

USSC justice nominees are not chosen from a group of high school students or college students or law school students and certainly are not selected from any group of medical students.

Nominees are chosen from a selection of jurists who have established themselves in their chosen fields and have demonstrated their excellence in performance of their work. Not as students but as professionals.

It strengthens the judicial system when it better reflects the population rather than merely one segment of society that has historically been treated differently than other segments of society as white makes have historically been treated closed with persons of color or women. If historically justices had been primarily female or black or Hispanic or Asian or ( pick a demographic) I would argue just as much for candidates from other groups be considered.

If you wish to consider qualifications of USSC justices, it would be fair to consider Amy Coney Bryant to be less qualified than her fellow justices. OTOH, Brown Jackson is extremely well qualified and served more years in the bench ch and brought a greater amount and more diverse experience.

 

[Patooka]

I would say he is culturally more Egyptian/Muslim than American despite his birthplace.

That is something you would say, yes. Never heard you critique any politician who has said "the Irish in me", a very American turn of phrase.

 

[Derec]

And that came mind, or more that he wanted regime change that didn't involve the military in Egypt and that would lead to some expected outcomes. It was a peculiar thing to bring up, almost out of the blue and implied certain stances.

In the early 2010s he penned some opeds for the likes of Grauniad and HuffPo talking about overthrowing the Mubarak regime.
In this one, he is defending Muslim Brotherhood against criticism.

It seems unlike that El-Sayed won't take the nomination. That would be the wrong choice in the primary. But suggesting a guy that is enabling the destruction of our Government should be re-elected because the opponent has some misguided to out-of-touch to potential outrageous foreign policy views seems misguided. I'd call it a Hobson Choice at the polls.

The incumbent, Gary Peters, is a Democrat and not running for reelection.
I don't know much about Rogers, the Republican candidate, but I think it is important that El Sayed lose. If people like him win even outside safe districts, it will make DSA more powerful among Democrats. I fear for what this will mean for the 2028 presidential nomination.

 

[Toni]

First of all, El Sayed's country is the USA.

Abdul considers himself an "Egyptian American". I would say he is culturally more Egyptian/Muslim than American despite his birthplace.

This whole thing sound like six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

More like one degree. He spoke at an Islamist conference with speakers who are explicitly pro-terrorism, as the article expounded on.

Note that your Ilk wasn't phased by Adam Hamawy getting the nomination either. He was an associate of the terrorist leader Omar Abdel-Rahman (aka "the Blind Sheikh").

DSA are turning into a reverse watermelon - red on the outside, green on the inside.

Scalia and Alito: both Italian Americans. This: African American. Kagan: Jewish American.

 

[Derec]

You keep shifting between the nation and NY but mentioning a handwaved opinion is not hard evidence of anything but the opinion.

That part of the discussion was about the DSA proportion in the NY state legislature. Do you disagree that it is pretty far to the left already, and will be pulled to the left even more with more DSA members?

The Democratic Congressional delegation is likewise about to become more left, but it is starting from a more moderate baseline. Still, it will be dangerous if Dems have a narrow majority in the House, as that gives fringe groups more pull over the overall caucus.

 

[Derec]

Scalia and Alito: both Italian Americans. This: African American. Kagan: Jewish American.

Scalia is dead and hasn't been on the court in a decade. In any case, Bush never said that he would only consider Italian Americans for the seat he nominated Alito for.

 

[Derec]

Hyper-representation?!

Yes. Saying that there must be two black SCOTUS justices (and not considering anybody not black and female for the seat) means that 22% of the Court is guaranteed to be black which is more than black share in the population.

So I suppose we get to the real issue you have here. Where in the world were your threads whining about all of the white nominations when white people are grossly hyper-represented on the Supreme Court?

Did any recent president say that they would not consider anybody who is not white?

Do you (and others) really not see the big problem with Biden excluding anybody but black women from consideration?

 

[laughing dog]

You keep shifting between the nation and NY but mentioning a handwaved opinion is not hard evidence of anything but the opinion.

That part of the discussion was about the DSA proportion in the NY state legislature. Do you disagree that it is pretty far to the left already, and will be pulled to the left even more with more DSA members?

No to your premise and no to your conclusion (because they will be a small fraction as shown earlier).

The Democratic Congressional delegation is likewise about to become more left, but it is starting from a more moderate baseline. Still, it will be dangerous if Dems have a narrow majority in the House, as that gives fringe groups more pull over the overall caucus.

And that is dangerous because….?

 

[Derec]

White men have started on at least second base, if not third, with bases loaded.

This sentence is at the root of what's wrong with left wing identity politics, frankly.
This is ignoring that people are individuals and not merely interchangeable ciphers for a racial or gender identity. You imagine all white people represented by one baseball player.
A white person today is neither responsible nor is benefitting from what came in the past. They are different individuals.
So punishing white men to "even things out" is not rectifying any past discrimination, it is compounding it. Because the white jurists being passed over (not just for SCOTUS seat, but federal judgeships in general) by the likes of Biden today is not the same as the jurists decades earlier who enjoyed advantages. He isn't benefitting from these advantages. He is just being harmed by the left-wing desire to enact a race/gender "payback".
Why is that so difficult for the left-wingers to understand?

Letting people who have always been at the back of the line, if they were ever given a place in line at all go first is called making up for unfair treatment.

Again, they are not the same people. KBJ was never at the "back of the line". In fact, it was much easier for her to enter Harvard College and Law School because of the racial preferences it and many other schools have practiced for decades. And of course, she competed against a much smaller pool of rivals when Biden was selecting a nominee because he excluded anyone who wasn't black and female outright.

It is not unfair for someone who always got the first shot and all the benefits of doubt and best chance that comes from
Being burn into a long lounge of best chances to not get the first shot sometimes. Last I looked white men were still doing ok.

It is very much unfair because you are punishing people who look like people who enjoyed advantages in the past. You are ignoring that tehy are individuals, not just interchangeable stand-ins for the hated "white male" archetype.

Let’s face it: had Biden never stated he was going to nominate a black woman but it still turned out that a black woman was chosen, you and a bunch of mediocre white people would still claim it wasn’t fair.

What is with this leftist compulsion to call white men "mediocre"?

If KBJ was chosen without Biden restricting his choice in order to buy Clyburn's support in SC, we could still criticize his choice, just like other SCOTUS picks are criticized. For example for her strong support for racial preferences.

Because fair to you will always look like a white man.

Bullshit. But fair to you will always look like excluding white men just because we are white and male.

 

[Toni]

White men have started on at least second base, if not third, with bases loaded.

This sentence is at the root of what's wrong with left wing identity politics, frankly.
This is ignoring that people are individuals and not merely interchangeable ciphers for a racial or gender identity. You imagine all white people represented by one baseball player.
A white person today is neither responsible nor is benefitting from what came in the past. They are different individuals.
So punishing white men to "even things out" is not rectifying any past discrimination, it is compounding it. Because the white jurists being passed over (not just for SCOTUS seat, but federal judgeships in general) by the likes of Biden today is not the same as the jurists decades earlier who enjoyed advantages. He isn't benefitting from these advantages. He is just being harmed by the left-wing desire to enact a race/gender "payback".
Why is that so difficult for the left-wingers to understand?

Letting people who have always been at the back of the line, if they were ever given a place in line at all go first is called making up for unfair treatment.

Again, they are not the same people. KBJ was never at the "back of the line". In fact, it was much easier for her to enter Harvard College and Law School because of the racial preferences it and many other schools have practiced for decades. And of course, she competed against a much smaller pool of rivals when Biden was selecting a nominee because he excluded anyone who wasn't black and female outright.

It is not unfair for someone who always got the first shot and all the benefits of doubt and best chance that comes from
Being burn into a long lounge of best chances to not get the first shot sometimes. Last I looked white men were still doing ok.

It is very much unfair because you are punishing people who look like people who enjoyed advantages in the past. You are ignoring that tehy are individuals, not just interchangeable stand-ins for the hated "white male" archetype.

Let’s face it: had Biden never stated he was going to nominate a black woman but it still turned out that a black woman was chosen, you and a bunch of mediocre white people would still claim it wasn’t fair.

What is with this leftist compulsion to call white men "mediocre"?

If KBJ was chosen without Biden restricting his choice in order to buy Clyburn's support in SC, we could still criticize his choice, just like other SCOTUS picks are criticized. For example for her strong support for racial preferences.

Because fair to you will always look like a white man.

Bullshit. But fair to you will always look like excluding white men just because we are white and male.

All of that is particularly rich coming from you.

 

[Toni]

Scalia and Alito: both Italian Americans. This: African American. Kagan: Jewish American.

Scalia is dead and hasn't been on the court in a decade. In any case, Bush never said that he would only consider Italian Americans for the seat he nominated Alito for.

He also never said he’d only consider white men but here we are…

 

[Toni]

I honestly do not understand what you believe MCAT scores have to do with choosing a black woman for the USSC.

Only considering black women for SCOTUS/Veep/Senate seat from California is the result of the same identity politics as discriminating against white and Asian applicants in med school admissions for example.

Something I learned within 48 hours of being on campus as a freshman is that nobody gave a fuck about my perfect grades and stellar test scores. Definitely not my professors who only cared about how I did in their class, on their exams. Oh, and that I did not cheat or cause them extra work or trouble.

What does that have to do with the fact that admission standards are significantly higher for some races/ethnicities than others?

You are only objecting because previously the identity politics included your demographic

Now it’s opened up.

All the best things are not owed to white mem because they are white men.

 

[laughing dog]

White men have started on at least second base, if not third, with bases loaded.

This sentence is at the root of what's wrong with left wing identity politics, frankly.

Pretty ironic coming from anyone arguing that promoting/hiring women or minorities is punishing white men.