The Phileas Club 114 – The Social Media Sickness

 

On this episode we talk about:

  • Social media and its effect on us
  • Russian “investments” near Turku and alcohol safety
  • Kavanaugh nomination inquiry (and the “Trump Con Law” podcast)
  • The slow disintegration of the German government
  • And more!

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Comments

  1. Ed Mitchell says:

    Hi everyone,

    I wanted to write in and give a little clarity to the current Kavanaugh appointment regarding the Obama Supreme Court pick, because while Allison did a fantastic job explaining how the process works, there was one little thing that’s kind of important and gives a little more picture around Kavanaugh.

    Late in Obama’s term, Justice Antonin Scalia died. He was a pretty hard constitutional conservative, and so since the Republicans controlled Congress, the head of the Senate – Mitch McConnell said that no Obama appointee will even have a hearing because Obama was what’s called a “lame duck” president (in his last year of his last term). This move was completely unprecedented, there have been many times when Supreme Court nominees were chosen by lame duck presidents, and if you want to hear more, John Oliver did a great bit about it: https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-slams-republicans-for-attempting-to-block-obamas-scotus-choice.

    Obama chose Merrick Garland, a pretty center right judge who I think both sides agreed was a good choice. However, McConnell followed through with his statement and did not hold a hearing. After Obama left office, Trump nominated Gorsuch (fairly conservative), who was confirmed and replaced Scalia. He’s a pretty young guy (51), so he’ll be on the court for a while.

    A few years later, Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, which gave Trump another opportunity to nominate a judge. There’s some interesting conspiracy theories on why he retired, but I’ll leave that to you to research. Ultimately, he picked Kavanaugh, who’s even more conservative than Gorsuch and fairly young too, which effectively stacks the court.

    It kind of matters in the sense that Kavanaugh wasn’t a holdover from the Obama administration, so it doesn’t look bad on Republicans that they are rushing this now vs. earlier, but it does seem pretty obvious they want him confirmed before the midterms.

  2. This was extremely hard to listen to this time… Found myself yelling at Patrick.. The cry wolf statement put me over the edge Patrick. I believe what we are seeing is serious on all fronts and we need to speak out against it and loudly. Racism and Bigotry in its many forms are filtering into our societies one inch at a time and the more we hear it the more we get acclimatized to it and tend to ignore it.

    Your guests were fantastic as usual.

    • Hey Stan! Thanks for your comment. But maybe I should have made it more clear that I wasn’t just talking about racism or bigotry (although that can be exaggerated as well THB). Rather, I was talking about any action or any law the government passes. In France at least, the are ALL the end of the world and heralding the apocalypse if you listen to the opposition (whoever the opposition is), even if it’s something about changing trash days… Any tax law is ruining the country, any labor law is bankrupting everyone, any education law is destroying our youth… It’s difficult (impossible) to hear the legitimate concerns through that noise, and it’s problematic for someone like me who wants to know these things.

  3. I think there was some inaccuracies when talking of Kavanaugh.

    1. Allison claimed that Trump should have done the nomination earlier. Well he couldn’t have because Anthony Kennedy at the end of July.

    2. Patrick comment saying that for such appointment, consensus should between parties be met. Actually, that was the case before: it required 2/3 of the senate (or maybe both houses, IDK about the specifics). But the democrats change this rule to “normal majority” during Obama. (For the appointment of another judge; not supreme court.)

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