'The Supreme Court Case That Could Overturn the Heart of the New Deal

[turbinetree]

January 4, 2017

And though the Court will rule before July, hardly anyone has noticed it.


As the Supreme Court gets back to work this Friday, January 5, media coverage of its potentially momentous 2017-2018 term has focused on several high-profile cases that deal with gerrymandering, cell phone privacy, religiously cloaked anti-gay discrimination, and the future of public-employee unions. But one sleeper has received less attention than it deserves. Argued on October 2, this case could strip foundational safeguards in place for over 80 years, essential to ensuring millions of low-wage and non-union workers of their right to fair pay, job security, workplace safety, nondiscrimination, and other guarantees protected by state and federal law. The case gives the Roberts Court, with its newly reconstituted 5-4 conservative majority, a chance to escalate its pro-corporate activism to levels unmatched even by the famously anti-regulatory pre-New Deal Court of a century ago. If the Court reaches the result sought by business advocates, this would, as elaborated by two Seton Hall professors in a 2014 law review article, “effectively end the labor laws.”

The corporate litigants, joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Trump Department of Justice, claim that the once-obscure 1925 Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) empowers employers to require employees, as a condition of employment, to channel all disputes into arbitration proceedings on an individual, one-on-one basis, barring any form of joint or class effort in any forum. This result would override what courts have repeatedly called the “core protection” of the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia Act (Norris-LaGuardia) and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—that employees, whether represented by a union or not, may by right engage in “concerted activities for the purpose of … mutual aid or protection.”

Regardless of whether the Chamber and its allies get what they are asking for in the pending case, progressives must face up to some hard questions: How could the nation have descended to the point that judicial erasure of explicit provisions structuring employer-employee relations is now possible? How were corporate strategists able to steadily advance—and keep below the radar of the press, progressive political leaders, and the millions of affected workers and families—this multi-decade litigation campaign that teed up such an upheaval? Going forward, what realistically can be done to secure, and if necessary restore, the statutory design for workers’ economic security and equity that hard-line business forces would have the Court shred?



-snip-

Building on such efforts, progressive leaders can connect the dots between courtroom battles that, like the pending wage theft cases, put foundational legal remedies against corporate law-breaking on the chopping block, and broader political struggle against policies that worsen inequality. Progressive leaders just need to include the courts in the picture they are painting of conservatives’ political agenda—right alongside tax cuts for the rich and diminished income health care guarantees.

Conservatives’ politicization of the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court, is no secret. What is a secret, though one hiding in plain sight, is that this agenda involves tilting not only the scales of justice but the rewards of the economy toward large corporations and away from consumers, workers, retirees, and others dependent on those corporations. It is up to progressive leaders to bring that secret out in the open, and lay the groundwork for rolling back the radical judicial nullification of essential legal protections that corporate advocates have engineered, and remain hell-bent to extend.


http://prospect.org/article/supreme-court-case-could-%E2%80%98overturn-heart-new-deal%E2%80%99



This issue should be one that should be front and center in the party, every time democrats come out to hold a "news conference" these three cases should be mentioned, 80 years of protection of the worker can and will more than likely be crushed, all one has to do is remember this scene of absolute BS answer of a nominee now sitting on the bench

[Demsrule86]

1. It is quite simple. Progressives have been fighting each other and not the Republicans...and this is

the result. The Steins and Nader's and their stupid followers helped cause this. Vote Democratic and we can still stop and / or fix this...but if you are going to 'punish' Democrats for anything you disagree with than you enable the GOP. The GOP has been able to do this because they vote for their party pretty much no matter what. People celebrate Doug Jones win, but Moore came close. I doubt all those who vote for Moore favored child molestation...not they voted to advance their party's ideas and if we are to survive as a party and a country , we better follow suit.

[turbinetree]

4. Forgive me if I respond to the way I am going to respond

I am in no way trying to pit each of us against the other, when I post articles I am trying to help educate the readers of what is happening in this court, and I try to use reference materiel to back up my comments.

This court is dangerous, extremely dangerous and it has been ever since Roberts was placed or confirmed as the supreme justice, wearing that black robe, he has voted to cut voting rights, he has curtailed the means to have human beings file class actions suits against these corporations and oligarchs, and now he has before him and his right wing court not only the gerrymander case in Wisconsin, but he now has brought this case, these three cases into one fold, which in my opinion is not good, he will use one or possible two of the cases to further the damage to the worker, and he was also the one person that set the rules as to what and how cases are presented in this court and what cases he wants, he is not only judge, jury and executioner, he is dangerous. Every year he sends out rules of what he wants to hear, and how those rules apply to his agenda .

And now we have senate that is basically giving a green light to people on the federal district court that further this enabling of this court.

I agree that we need to stop the punishing and in fighting, I am hoping that people come to the realization, that it is the courts which make your life better, and presently it is this present right wing power in the courts that are making life miserable for a whole bunch of people.

I truly wish that there was TV station channel that even if it was boring, it would inform the public as to what the ramifications of rulings that this court is doing to the population and the individual.

The right wing court since Reagan has been attacking the worker, environment, water, food and land and air, that is a simple fact.

[calimary]

9. True. But those who insist on running off with some renegade

instead of marching shoulder-to-shoulder TOGETHER (because only the perfect will do) deserve a massive share of the blame. Those who make it possible, or even desirable, to splinter off from the main ARE a big part of the reason why we’re in this mess now.

Anybody ever heard that old cliche “divide and conquer”? Our enemies sure understand it. Both foreign AND domestic. The CONS understand this clearly. So do the Russians.

[turbinetree]

14. I agree completely with your remarks

the public has got to understand that the courts are suppose to be our first line of defense against excessive abuse of power, and presently we have courts, that are using the system to fleece the public, look no further than in this article of what a judge in Louisiana is / was doing to the population.................We have seen this in Missouri, and other parts of the country


https://www.revealnews.org/blog/poor-defendants-in-louisiana-fight-alleged-modern-day-debtors-prison/



This judge and any judge in the country doing this should be disbarred..................there are rules of laws in this country, not debtor prisons rules of law

You are quite correct in your summation, if the court system can divide the population of who is and what is criminal, than that goes to say the people trying to get into power to continue this rampage need to be voted out or never make it on the ballot.

Presently there are approximately 14 congressional members and two that I have counted, that have gone on the attack for a report that has not been discredited on this treason aspect of the last campaign, they have attacked the whistle blower of this treason, and have not sent one letter to the 21 that have made contact to US representatives and citizens, that is just remarkable, they have put party above country, and they are using what they perceive to be some law to abuse the "Rule of Law."

Some of these people in the right wing leadership position have been and have ads placed in districts to attack the Democratic opponent that were funded by Russian operatives........................and not once have they been challenged in the open.................

Take this moment of what Joy Reid said about Paul Ryan and how funded this opposition and where he got the money to do this.................

Then think back to the Citizens United ruling, all it takes is matter to register a name so that it smells and passes the tests for the IRS and the FEC------------------the back channel of money is now speech is tearing this country apart, and we are seeing this unfold by a court that enables this stuff.................Roberts is dangerous............

This speaker of the house got money from Russia agents to run this ad ..........................

Randy Bryce or whoever wins the primary in Wisconsin should demand some answers from this hypocrite, Paul "ayn rand" Ryan.........


Just like the speaker in the senate................he also has gotten funds from agents of Russia ..................



Divided we fall, United we stand, we need to stand.........................United

[louis c]

15. You are exactly correct

You see, the Supreme Court appointments are the most important actions a President takes.

After we have come down to the two major party candidates, and I don't care who the two are, everyone who cares about workers' rights should vote for the Democrat. It becomes a binary choice.

When you see Ted Cruz vote for and support Donald Trump after Trump accused Cruz's father of being involved in the JFK assassination, you know the other side gets it.

Because of the 2016 election, workers will being getting fucked for the next two generations.

[Sophia4]

34. All very true.

Now how do you persuade a voter who voted his/her conscience but not for the Democratic nominee to understand the wisdom in your argument.

It's now about persuasion.

If we are to win in the future, we can't continue to verbally spank those who were "naughty" in the last election.

We have to win back a lot more voice in the Senate and House this year.

We have no time to waste trying to get back at people who voted "wrong." Especially since they may still think they voted correctly.

How would we handle this if we were at a table arguing for our candidate and a person who voted against the Democratic candidate in the last election stood in front of our table and was talking to us. I don't think we would scold them. We would engage them and tell them why it is so important that, this time, they vote for the Democrat.

We don't need to go back and point fingers at past mistakes. The 2018 elections are too important for Democrats.

We have a wonderful opportunity to win seats in Congress for Democrats. Let's focus on that and let bygones be bygones.

This is very important to me and to all Americans.

[louis c]

35. If they don't get it on their own, it's probably too late

If a middle class worker voted their conscience in 2016 and it was Trump, they probably are racists.

if they wrote in a name in the GE, or blanked, or voted 3rd party, they don't understand binary choices.

I'm 65 years old and my life is just fine. If I have to educate people before I can convince them, I don't have the time to talk to them and they, most likely, don't have the time to listen.

[Sophia4]

20. And those who scold the "renegades" who view themselves as people

acting on principle don't help unify the Democratic Party.

It goes both ways.

We have to respect each other's decisions about voting. The results of our votes may be tragic, but we have to start from a place of respect for each other if we are to heal the damaging rift in the Democratic Party.

I understand why DUers keep blaming those in the Democratic Party who did not vote for Hillary. I understand it very well, and I respect the feelings of anger and disappointment that motivate these posts.

BUT . . . . .if we want to win in 2018 and 2020 and on into the future (and need I say the issues and elections are more important than ever now as we face extremism on the conservative side), we cannot allow our emotions, our anger, to push away people we can attract to vote for our candidates.

We have to end the anger. It's the only way to heal our Party and win in 2018 and 2020.

I'm sorry to have to write these posts so often. I do not mean to criticize individuals or hurt people's feelings. I respect those feelings.

But it is so essential that we win together in 2018 and 2020 and these divisive posts, in the view of the authors justified (and I fully understand that feeling and why it exists), do not contribute to our chance of winning in future elections.

Forgive and forget and carefully work together in the future.

If people think that the union organizers always agreed on candidates and strategies, they are wrong. The extreme importance to families and to our country of the work of the unions was more important. We are in a similar situation today. Trump is a danger to our country. We have to win in 2018 and 2020. We have to prioritize what is most important and focus on it. And wining coming elections is most important.

It is not a matter of agreeing with everyone. It is a matter of winning elections right now. And if the Hillary supporters whose candidate won the nomination and won the difficult task of pulling the Democratic Party together cannot reach out and include those who did not vote for Hillary, then the Democratic Party is done for. Because clearly, without all Democrats, even those who did not vote for Hillary but whose interests align with the Democratic Party don't get out and vote for candidates that win primaries in the future, the Democratic Party is finished.

We saw in Alabama that when Democrats come out and vote and unite, we can win even in a very Republican state. It can be done if we unite and work together. The country is moving more toward the Democratic Party. We should encourage that by focusing on the positive and the struggle against extreme conservatism.

Unfortunately, as we saw in 2016, Hillary supporters alone do not or at least did not win a national election. We have to have a united Democratic Party.

It's hard to understand this when you feel strongly that your candidate should have won and you know that she did not win because the supporters of another candidate did not vote for her. But that is politics. You have to move on to the next election and forget the hurts of the past.

I remember 1968. History will tell us that had Democrats united around Humphrey, a candidate who was objectionable to many in the Party, and had we united around McGovern in 1972, we might have spared our country a lot of turmoil and pain. But we didn't.

Let's don't make the same mistake twice. Let's unite and drop the angry posts about those who did not vote for Hillary in 2016. Same for those who did not vote for Hillary. They, too, need to forget the battles within the party that led to defeat. Unfortunately for DU, it is the winner, that is in this case, the winner of the Democratic nomination, Hillary, who has to take the lead in reconciliation. It's a tough job, but DUers have to take the lead unless we want the Democratic Party to lose again. That's just the way winning and losing work. The winner has to open the door for the loser in the party.

2016 is the past. It is already 2018 -- two years later. We have to win in the future. Especially in 2018 and 2020. It is not just for us. It is for our children and grandchildren.

[Demsrule86]

26. There is no principle in helping to elect Republicans which is what they did... and when I think of

the courts, I want to weep...so to those you describe as principled...I say they are not. They put a monster in the White House and we will be lucky to avoid nuclear war.... a giant fuck you to all who did this. You betrayed your party and more importantly your country...all the innocent blood that will flow is on you.

[Sophia4]

27. Both sides view themselves as acting on principle.

It's politics. If you want someone to vote for you, you have to be kind and courteous to them even if you don't agree with them, even if you don't like them. We all have to have respect for others. Might as well not run in an election if you are going to insult and push away people who vote for an opponent. That's not how politics works.

[uponit7771]

30. There's no "good" in letting the perfect or good be the enemy of adequate, that's NOT progressive

[Sophia4]

33. But no one is perfect.

Constantly reminding people of their mistakes does not make them into allies or friends. It just makes them defensive.
It is counterproductive.

[Demsrule86]

37. The only way to remedy this is to win elections and appoint new judges which will take years

I am sorry to say. Those who thought the parties are the same are in for a rude awakening.

[Willie Pep]

11. Sadly too many Stein/Nader voters never saw the importance of the US Supreme Court.

I tried to argue that even if they disliked Clinton for other reasons stopping the GOP from taking over the Court had to come first since it could define public policy for decades. But it never works because they can always find some bigger issue like Hillary supposedly trying to start World War III. Seriously, some of the Never Hillary people told me that Clinton was planning on starting a nuclear war with Russia and was going to blow up the world and that is why she had to be stopped.

[Demsrule86]

25. We tried to tell them...but they were too stupid to understand...and election happens every two,

four or six years...court appointments on the federal level are for life.

[Progressive dog]

31. Stein happily attended the party for

Putin's RT propaganda network. I wouldn't be surprised if her campaign was mostly funded by Russians and Republicans.
She and her supporters share blame for the psychopath named Trump. In their reality, electing Trump is probably called winning.

[JCanete]

23. The Democratic Party, by abdicating on all kinds of social justice and economic issues over the

years, has created a void that left-of-democrat, third parties have filled. It has failed too often to capture the hearts and minds of the American people because of its tepid, less than galvanizing approach to issues of class that could have actually put the middle class and the poor on the same side of a class war. Our approach as a party over decades has only allowed divide and conquer politics among the masses to prosper and the rich to continue to win.

If you think its Nader and Stein and maybe Sanders who are the problem, then you are only looking at the top of the ticket, and not the 1000 seats we've had purged from us over the last 30 years. That is a party messaging failure. It is a big money messaging success. We should have never thought we could find some comfortable middle between pro-corporate interests and those of the greater population. That middle would have come by being firmly planted on the left side and fighting those firmly planted on the right. Instead, this is what we have.

[Demsrule86]

24. That is not true...no party can be all things. You have to accept you will either get some of what

you want or none if you help elect Republicans by not voting or voting for the Green traitor slime. We will not have a majority without a big tent which will include foks you and I won't agree with. That is how it will be. In a center left country, there is no choice.

[Sophia4]

28. It is true. Trump voters are in many cases Democrats that the Democratic Party

abandoned some years ago.

[JCanete]

41. It isn't a matter of who the democrats have abandoned. Republicans have always been the worse choice

for working class Americans. Democrats, to their credit have always been far more concerned about the plight of the poor and the middle class, but they've tried to thread a needle of rhetoric and action that has resulted in something more mealy mouthed and ambiguous, both less accessible and les clear to the general public and less dramatic in its impact, for the sake of being non-threatening to big money interests who they have decided they need. And those interests support them for it, because that's a safer bet than letting a progressive win a primary and then god for bid, winning a general, but their true love is still the republicans, and they still fund the shit out of them and use the corporate media to destroy democrats.

Democrats have playing nice with the people who screw us at every turn, and in doing so, it has become very easy to muddy the waters around who is fighting for who. We need to pick up the class war as a party and run with it already.

[Sophia4]

43. Agreed. Meanwhile, I see new tents in Los Angeles -- at a freeway entrance

out in the open, easily seen, near my house. Tents under freeway bridges.

With little effort you find a tent community.

We have such a serious problem with poverty that it is hard to believe we are supposedly a prosperous country.

It is very, very difficult for a homeless person to ever achieve a truly stable life.

Yet the media doesn't even report on this. And it is far from the thoughts of people wealthy enough to be donors who count to politicians.

You are so right.

I don't like the term "class war," because really we are all in this society together. But I understand what you mean by it.

[Drunken Irishman]

45. You mean the white racists who left the party in the 60s when Dems started pushing civil rights?

Yeah. I don't want a candidate who appeases Trump voters.

[Sophia4]

47. No. I mean voters who cast their ballots for Obama but did not come out to vote

for Hillary or who voted for someone else, Trump or a third party candidate in 2016.

Racists are hopeless. But they are not numerous enough to elect a president.

It's people worried about their jobs, their homes and their families who are the problem.

And then there are many voters who will come out and vote for a person of color but not bother when the candidate is white. There were also many who didn't want to vote for a woman.

Is it possible that a lot of Democrats did not vote in 2016 in the swing states?

California where I live was decisively for Hillary. But states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere in states that voted for Obama did not go for Hillary. That's where the disgruntled Democrats whose votes could have insured a Democratic victory were.

We should go to the voters, the Democratic voters, and find out why they voted against Hillary or did not vote. Are Democrats afraid of the answers?

[Drunken Irishman]

48. So, a very small group of people. Got it.

Those who voted Trump in '16 but Obama in '12 are probably a very small sub-set of Trump voters.

[Sophia4]

49. Yes. But Trump won by small margins in some key states.

Details count.

[Drunken Irishman]

50. Details matter when they're correct.

There's no evidence that there was enough Obama 2012 voters who crossed over and supported Trump in 2016 to throw the election. The biggest issue in 2016 was 2012 Obama voters who sat the election out or voted Third Party.

[delisen]

52. Russian interference, voter suppression, and

failure to inform voters in 2016 of Russian interference in the election to assist Trump - these are factors that cannot be ignored.

The fact is that states such as Michigan and Wisconsin turned red in 2010 (re-apportionment year) following the successful passage of ACA health care which created the Tea Party, which then became a powerful force in the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party (including all its progressives) lost a great many seats between 2010 and 2016.
Whose responsibility was it to insure this did not occur? Surely you do not think it was Hillary Clinton's role?

Clinton was Secretary of State for a large part of that time-that focus is international, not domestic. So whose role do you think was?

We do know that Clinton's focus on human rights and role regarding sanctions against Russia angered Putin-and thus it is likely that his work to elect Trump president of the US was spurred by hatred toward Clinton.

Should she not have championed human rights or the sanctions against Russia?

Why did Scott Walker get elected governor of Wisconsin in 2010? How did he survive a recall vote? Why is he running for a third term?

Why did private sector union workers support Walker in his fight against public sector workers.

What was the role of "disgruntled workers" in Scott Walker's success? Are you going to let Scott Walker win yet again or sit back and hope the rising tide against Trump be sufficient to defeat Walker?

When we look at the whole record -foreign affairs and state/local politics we get a fuller picture than the we just compare the 4-8 year presidential election.

When we define "worker" narrowly we get a false image of our society and build false narratives about politics.


From the NY times on Scott Walker, union support, and Wisconsin - which got its blue rinsed out in 2010.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/scott-walker-and-the-fate-of-the-union.html

It is particularly bitter for Walker’s opponents that his rise has taken place in Wisconsin, a blue state with a long history of labor activism; it was the first state in the nation to grant collective-­bargaining rights to public employees, in 1959. Walker, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has won three races for governor, one a recall effort, and each time he took more than a third of the votes from union households. He was able to do this by making “labor” seem like someone else — even to union members — and pitting one faction against another. Four years ago, in a private exchange captured by a documentary filmmaker, he revealed his successful strategy to a billionaire supporter who asked him if Wisconsin would ever become a right-to-work state. Walker responded enthusiastically, explaining that Act 10 was just the beginning of a larger effort. “The first step is, we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public-­employee unions,” he said, “because you use divide-­and-­conquer.”

[JCanete]

29. I just told you how to achieve a big tent. The people are the tent, not big business

and our richest democratic contributors. Get the middle class and the poor on the same side. The republicans have consistently succeeded in pitting the middle class against the poor, and we have failed to present a better argument.

[Demsrule86]

36. We have business in this country who provide jobs... We need regulation for

sure, but they are not the enemy. This obsession with purity... is going to cost us more elections if we are not careful

[JCanete]

40. they are not the enemy but their desires often are detrimental, and they need serious push-back.

A compromising position is what has resulted in where we are. I'm willing to be pragmatic and vote the best choice in any race. To use that reasoning to prevent us from putting up more progressive choices in the primary AND supporting them over less progressive ones, is again, why we are where are are at. I know we differ on that issue, but I think the evidence of the last 30 years of democratic politics is pretty compelling.

[Demsrule86]

42. I have no problem with such choices but not this year. We can't afford to waste time or

money on primaries...we need to expend all out energy to get the GOP out...we can have the best elected ever but if they are in the minority their hands are tied. We did well in Virginia but the lesson of the gerrymander cannot be ignored. We won 10 % more votes and still didn't get the legislature. This is not the year to worry about primaries or purification. We have to defeat the Gop or we are done...the progressive movement is dead. The courts will be out of reach for a generation. We need to expend all our resources against the GOP...we do not need primaries. And candidates need to be chosen for their ability to succeed in a given district (house, legislature) or state (Governor, Senator). We should run for the House and legislature seats on local issues and health care (ACA). We should not nationalize the races as that will draw more Trump voters...we need the House and the Senate if possible to stop the judges. I just don't care who is a moderate this year or who did what or who is progressive and everyone has a different definition. I just want Democrats period...and hopefully they can win.

I would like to add that the way to get more progressives is to run them in local races at the grass roots level...not at the Senate level in primaries. It is too risky and we will lose races we simply cannot afford to lose.

[Sophia4]

44. We have to unify the party.

Primaries are not the problem in my view. It's the failure of losers and winners in primaries to come together and bring their voters to vote for the winner.

But the winner has to be acceptable to all, and that can sometimes be a big problem.\

All who run in a Democratic primary should state before the primary that they will back the winner and work to elect the winner. That would help. That should be understood from the get-go.

But the winners bear the burden of reaching out to the losers and winning the losers' respect and support. It's a tough responsibility, but that is what makes a party strong -- the willingness of winners to reach out and "embrace" in a political way the losers.

Winners are in the position of strength after a primary. In addition, winners -- won -- by definition and therefore bear that responsibility -- uniting those who lost in the winners' circle -- Inclusion is the name of the game, and a winner who can't genuinely reach out and include the "losers" is likely to lose in the final round.

The focus has to be on inclusion and on winning for everyone.

[JCanete]

51. the biggest place where we disagree is that you think progressives can't win, and that our

direction towards moderacy is a winning strategy. Again, I direct you to the last 30 years of results. I'm saying that if our party financially supported and got behind the most progressive dems, they could win, and that in-fact, their message would be far more salient to working class Americans while still championing every marginalized voter block, than we have been able to provide when not going after the rich and the very regressive pressures their influence has put on our democracy, as a galvanizing target.

I don't trust our party's judgement on "ability to succeed". It hasn't yielded fruits, and somehow, those choices are almost never the most progressive candidate in the race. That's because the structure that has gotten our minority leadership into positions of power is of course the one that they would base future candidate viability on. The ones they can get big donors excited about. Those are the wrong fucking people to get excited about a democratic candidate. It ties our hands and it convolutes and waters down our rhetoric.

[Demsrule86]

38. We had a great majority in 07...we won in 06 and 08....and then in 10 Some abandoned President

Obama because it was not possible to get single payer. This allowed the GOP to sweep states just before a census and then gerrymander using computers. If you look at the percentages, we would have gotten the house back twice during Pres. Obama's time. It is the gerrymander that is responsible for much of our losses. Look at Virginia, we won by 10 points and yet we didn't get the legislature such is the power of the gerrymander. And the same folks who 'held Obama's feet to the fire' and ruined the next six years are the same ones who whined about Hillary and enabled Trump. I for one am sick of hearing whining from anyone in this party. Fight Republicans...leave the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates alone. We need to win. And ranting about how the Democratic Party sucks and this one or that one is 'corporate' is just a loser game and will only lead to worse losses. Honestly the progressive movement will be over if this continues. Look at the courts. It will take decades to fix what Trump and his enablers have done.Consider that we have another census in 20 and if we fail to win elections, we are finished. And I know some really believe if they attack the Democratic party, (not you) they can make it better somehow. But, they don't. They merely drive voters away. We need to win...all else must be put aside for now.

[Sophia4]

46. It's a matter of presenting ideas that will deal with the problems of voters

in a way that attracts voters and inspires trust.

The problem with "centrists" is that sometimes they avoid discussing the issues in any firm way because they are caught between offending their donors and really dealing with the problems that voters care about.

That's the dilemma for middle-of-the-road candidates.

Donor money or realism about the issues.

Issues like homelessness, stagnant wages, job losses due to moving industry to other countries and imports, healthcare that is too expensive for low income people (most of us in a country of stagnant wages, etc. ), policing that seems unfair to many, prisons disproportionately housing people of color Those are some of the issues that middle-of-the-road politicians sometimes don't address and that need to be addressed if we are to get voters to turn out across the country. There are many more controversial issues that our politicians don't deal with.

I agree with you in many ways, but I see problems especially in the Midwest with the middle-of-the-road approach. Especially in areas that have lost a lot of industry and top-paying jobs. They voted for Trump because he seemed to "feel" their anger at being left out of the prosperity. That's understandable. The anger has to be addressed.

[CrispyQ]

2. 21st Century Feudalism - that's the goal.

I want to smack the smugness off of Gorsuch's face.

And there, one of our best fighters, kicked to the curb. Nice work dems. The People & women everywhere will be so much better off with one less bulldog on our side. Godfuckingdamnit, you stupid shits. The dems used to be the smart party. Now they're the reactionary party. What the fuck happened?

[Irish_Dem]

3. Master/Slave paradigm. nt

[Demsrule86]

39. This is a terrible post. The Democrats are the only party that can defeat Trump...and your words

discourage voters from voting for Democrats.

[KPN]

5. "How could the nation have descended to the point that ...

judicial erasure of explicit provisions structuring employer-employee relations is now possible?"

Easy -- rightward movement of the Democratic Party over time in the interest of collaborating with as opposed to standing up to and against corporations and the Republican Party. While we were finding "middle ground", they were shifting the playing field to position anyone left of right in the socialist/communist camp.

"Neo-liberalism" or whatever you want to call it led us here. Not intentionally, but it is where it brought us. We just need to stand up and fight instead of acquiescing or even seeking middle ground. There is no such thing as middle ground any longer -- it is all RIGHT when it comes to economic policy and the GOPs involvement.

The courts ARE a huge problem. We need to win consistently to beat off this siege. Which means, yes, we have to pull together as a Party. The only way that I can see us doing that is if we take economic grievances of the working/middle class seriously and make them central to our Party's fundamental purpose -- and that means something way different than worker retraining.

[cp]

6. Thank you for bringing this to our attention

It is really important.

[turbinetree]

8. Your welcome

[Hortensis]

53. Important, but hardly a "sleeper."

I really object to telling people who haven't informed themselves that no one else has either. This term opened with this case, and it was discussed extensively in the media then, and in the extended period as the lower court cases came down and made their way to SCOTUS.

Not on cable or TV, of course. Most important topics are not discussed on screen, but even there a handful of responsible shows did. Like PBS evening news. It was also discussed a bit here on DU at the time.

This is actually 3 cases consolidated into one, Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis, which can be used to search for more information and other viewpoints.

[Mike Niendorff]

7. I've been sounding the alarm on this for 20 years now.

They're not trying to roll the clock back to 1950.

They're trying to roll it back to 1910.

I'm very, very happy to see an article like this finally getting some much deserved attention.


MDN

[turbinetree]

10. Your welcome

[Roland99]

12. Is this brought on the many lawsuits filed by laborers against Der Twitler over the years?

[procon]

13. We are nearing the end stage of the boiling frog parable.

The premise is that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it jumps immediately. But if you put it in a pot of warm water and then slowly turn up the heat, the frog will complacently let himself be boiled to death.

Republicans have been engaged in creating their own country for at least 50 years. They have their own media, and their own think tanks churn out scientific looking stats and academic white papers supporting the long term plans of the rich and powerful. The indoctrination of the public is given an able assist by Republican politicians, pundits, commentators, celebrities and even the man on the street, everyone repeating the same propaganda messaging word for word. Legislative teams are working non stop to write the laws that guarantee wealth and power shifts permanently into the hands of the upper class. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, union bashing, diminishing public education, reduced social services, erosion of civil rights, court packing, and the rise of the police state has all been made possible by the wealthy backers the right has courted to make sure the agenda is slowly and inexorably tilting toward the oligarchs.

The Democrats, like the frog, remain oblivious, lulled by quaint notions of fairness and cooperation, they can't see the flames under the pot.

[SharonAnn]

16. Banana Republic - Where corporations own and run the government

We should probably rename this so that people understand what a Banan Republic really is. Many don't.

It's a CORPORATE REPUBLIC where corporations own and run absolutely everything. The government, police force, military, legislature, etc. laws are proposed and passed that only benefit corporations and their owners. Citizens have no rights, especially if they go up against a corporation. Taxes are minimized or nonexistent on corporations and all revenues benefit these corporations, not the citizens.

I lived in Honduras for a while and saw this first-hand. No public schools, public medical care, public assistance of any kind. Roads and bridges built only where corporations needed them (and paid for by citizens' taxes) and nowhere else. Monopolies on most services and products, legislation passed to prohibit new entries to the market economy, arrest and imprisonment and even murder of those who protested the system, and on and on.

People said "at least the people working on the banana plantations have jobs". Well, they had jobs before, they were small farmers, but their land was stolen (by legislation) for corporations. After 100 years of banana plantations there, the surrounding little pueblos still had dirt roads, no schools, no medical clinics or hospitals, no electricity, etc. And they now had no land to grow their own food but had to buy it from "the company store".

We are much, much closer to this total corporate control than many realize.

[ProfessorPlum]

18. Corporate rule is much the same as that of a crime syndicate

we're essentially almost to the place where we are run completely by a mafia. Just like Russia.

[procon]

19. Rolling back a century of progress to return to the notorious

Gilded Age of the Robber Barons. It wasn't just happening in Banana Republics, but right here in the US too. We are headed back to the 19th century where U.S. industrialists and financiers, the capitalist titans who made obscene fortunes by unethical business practices, exploiting workers, and cheating their customers, amassed powerful monopolies and unprecedented wealth.

They got away with stealing the wages of workers by paying them in worthless script that was only good at the company store, or to pay the rent on company housing. People became serfs, owning nothing, dependent on the capricious whims of some wealthy business mogul in his ivory tower for everything.

[happy feet]

17. [phone]

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. There is the Gorsuch decision that a truck driver must freeze to death & not disobey company rules

A driver unhitched his trailer and left it beside the road because 1) Legally he could not drive a load any more hours. 2) He was going to freeze to death if he waited with the load until he could legally drive again.

But Gorsuch ruled that 3) The driver must stay with the load because company rules required that.

[Orrex]

22. Instead of "could," you might as well say "almost certainly will."

n/t

[melman]

32. The New Deal

Is that the same New Deal that was bashed in many threads from a certain former DU poster? You know the one. A big twitter celeb now apparently.

Anyway, this poster routinely went after FDR, 'FDR Dems', the New Deal etc and was heavily 'rec'ed' and cheered for doing so.

That one? Thought so.