Texas Republicans have voted to track down and arrest dozens of Democratic legislators who have fled the state to block passage of a partisan redistricting plan.
The vote passed by 85 to 6, following Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s threat of bribery charges against the absent Democrats.
After the vote, the governor ordered state troopers “to locate, arrest, and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans”.
The beauty of the 300-year-old American federalist system is that states enjoy a wide range of special rights to be ultimately determined by the current makeup of the Supreme Court with absolutely no checks on their power. Supreme Court Justices are lifetime appointees who can be bribed publicly and are free to lie about it, and there is no mechanism to question their ethics or remove them from their positions outside of a full impeachment like with Trump.
The state supreme courts have a good deal of power, but only to the extent that the federal Supreme Court doesn’t take it away. I can’t imagine a more fertile ground for fascism to be experimented upon legally if people of conscience do nothing.
There are checks built in. The fascists just control all of them.
Multiple justices should not have been confirmed. At least one should absolutely, 1000% been impeached (by Congress), regardless of party. The justices should be checking the president. Respect for the rule of law should be putting a stop to most of this.
We have voted for Team Fascists because we’ve decided team colors are more important than principles.
Congrats. You’re gonna turn your 100 billion dollars into 300 billion dollars and it’ll be worth 600 billion rubles. All the numbers are bigger, just like you wanted. Good fucking work. Maybe you should have considered that 3 years ago 600 billion rubles were worth 8 billion dollars.
You’ve played yourself (and the rest of us with you).
Which means they were never checks. Checks aren’t checks if they rely solely on good faith.
Everything relies on good faith if you go far enough.