DL Open Thread: Sunday, September 11, 2022
Ukraine Offensive: Blip Or New Reality?:
As the advancing Ukrainian troops regained lost territory with shocking speed, liberating the town of Balakliya and raising their blue-and-yellow flag over the city of Izyum, jubilant Ukrainians and officials in Kyiv and Western capitals indulged in a daring hope: maybe the grinding, stalemated war was swinging their way.
The stunning rout of Russian forces by Ukraine’s flash counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region does not, on its own, signal a decisive shift in the war to Ukraine’s advantage.
But the Ukrainian campaign has cut enemy supply lines, revealed disarray in the Russians’ ranks, electrified Ukrainians, forced occupying authorities to flee and infuriated Kremlin boosters.
At the very least, Ukraine’s surprise thrust into the northeast region of Kharkiv, after launching a separate counteroffensive that drew thousands of Russian troops to the southern Kherson area last week, has allowed the country to seize momentum in what had become a grinding artillery standoff.
MAGAts Ask Supreme Court To Protect Partisan Gerrymandering From Legal Oversight:
Conservative groups and lawyers who backed former President Donald Trump’s election lies and advised him on how to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to endorse a radical legal theory that would eviscerate voting rights and protect partisan gerrymandering from all challenges.
The requests came as amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs filed Tuesday in the case of Moore v. Harper. In that case, Republicans in the North Carolina legislature are asking the court to invalidate a congressional district map selected by their state Supreme Court after it ruled the Republican-drawn map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander under provisions of the state constitution.
State Republicans want the court to toss the current map by endorsing the so-called independent state legislature theory, which holds that only state legislatures have the authority to adopt congressional district maps and enact federal election laws. Proponents of the theory believe that the elections clause in the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the sole authority to set the “time, place, and manner” of elections.
If adopted, the theory would preclude any state-level judicial review of the federal election laws or congressional district maps adopted by state legislatures. That would give state legislatures a free hand to draw partisan congressional district maps in almost whatever way they please since the Supreme Court already cut off federal courts from hearing partisan gerrymandering claims in 2019. It could also enable state legislatures to adopt almost any election law, even if it violated provisions of their state constitution.
“According to proponents of the theory, state legislatures are independent, completely unfettered actors when it comes to regulating federal elections,” Ben Berwick, a counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit that opposes the adoption of the independent state legislature theory. “That is really novel, to put it nicely, and, to put it not as nicely, bunk and completely inconsistent with historical practice and even original understanding.”
Not that any of that matters to the justices on this rogue Supreme Court.
Suspicious Gun Purchases In US May Now Be Tracked. At least, those purchased by credit card. Although, uh, it might not be that effective:
Numerous top level credit card companies such as PayPal, Stripe and Square don’t allow gun purchases. For the credit companies that do allow the purchases, the total cost can be extra high due to interests.
As a result, many gun buyers often use cash for their purchases; potential buyers are often seen asking in online forums whether it’s better to buy guns with cash or credits, with many voting for cash.
Hey, at least some people in the financial services industry stepped forward. Maybe someday the cops will do the same.
What Are The Scammiest Ads On TV? For (you’re not getting) my money, the Car Shield ads are the worst. Even worse than the Medicare-Plus scams and the life insurance policies whose premiums can never go up (if you keep paying them until you die, which you won’t). Here’s one that runs incessantly:
OK, setting aside the question of who in their right mind would buy something based on the words of three blatant scam artists, the fact is that Car Shield is the marketing arm of a company called American Auto Shield. Or, to be more precise, American Auto Shield is the claims administrator for CarShield. Basically, you’re far less likely to get your claim honored with them than from those Medicare-Plus companies. Check out a whole bleepload of Yelp reviews. The only positive review came from the same state as where the company’s located. One 5-star review out of, wait for it, 103 reviews. Almost all the rest? One-star.
How do they make their money? Through the fine print and their ‘administrators’, who simply deny every claim. Otherwise, if anyone stopped to think about it, their alleged business model makes no sense.
Been meaning to write that one up for awhile. Didn’t have much else to write about today, so I figured, hey, don’t be a sucker. Wh-oooooo!!
What do you want to talk about?
Never forget….
The terrorism we did on September 11…. 1973.
We overthrew an entire government, assassinated a president and installed a fascist dictator!
Fifty years next year! Everyone ought to watch the incredible trilogy of documentaries from Patricio Guzmán, “The Battle for Chile.”
I wrote about them when I watched them for the first time a year or so ago: https://letterboxd.com/v9733xa/list/patricio-guzman-ranked/detail/