Life Above The Rock by Dillon O’Toole

Life Above The Rock

By Dillon O’Toole

At the time of me writing this, January is almost over and thus we are almost one-twelfth of the way through the year already. I hope by now everyone is getting used to writing 22 instead of 21 as the date, as well as adjusting to a new schedule of classes. Speaking of the new semester, with all that goes on with the start of a new semester you may find yourself living under the proverbial rock. That’s okay, I’m here to catch you up on some of the latest big stories.

Starting with the most recent news that will be covered in this article, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced that he will be retiring at the end of this term. The timing of Breyer’s retirement comes at an opportune time for Democrats, as they can nominate a replacement prior to the midterms later this year while simultaneously fulfilling President Biden’s campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the supreme court. According to AP News the current front runners for the position are, U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. Over the course of the year, it will be interesting to see how the nomination process goes, who the eventual nominee will end up being, and how, if at all, this may affect the midterm elections this year.

World tensions have seen a spike in recent months, mainly due to Russia’s buildup of military forces on the border of Ukraine. This buildup is estimated to be around 100,000 soldiers, and the Russian demands include stopping the expansion of NATO into other former Soviet countries. As of the time of writing, the United States has refused to give in to these demands and is attempting to continue negotiations to ease tensions. Despite the diplomatic efforts, 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on alert for a potential deployment to Europe. Additionally, AP News has reported that a Russian invasion in February could be possible.

Moving on from the potential spark of a Third World War, let’s talk about the potential monopolization of the video game industry. I am of course referencing Microsoft’s recent announcement of its intent to purchase Activision-Blizzard. The purchase is valued at 68.7 billion dollars and it would see the creators of the Call of Duty and Warcraft franchises come under the ownership of Microsoft and the Xbox brand. As was the case with Microsoft’s purchase of Zenimax Media, concerns were immediately raised that Microsoft may be creating a monopoly within the video game industry. According to the New York Times, the purchase would make Microsoft the third biggest gaming company, only behind Tencent and Sony, in terms of revenue. This is, of course, reliant on the purchase actually going through. The purchase must be approved by the FTC, which isn’t a surefire thing.

The music industry recently saw a shakeup as well, with Neil Young requesting his music to be removed from Spotify as long as Joe Rogan’s podcast remains on the platform. Neil Young requested his music to be removed due to misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines being spread on the podcast. Spotify has since agreed to remove Young’s music. Spotify themselves have an exclusivity contract with Rogan’s podcast worth more than $100 million.

In the world of the NFL, the competition to see who will compete in the Super Bowl is heating up. Most notably, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills in overtime, 42-36. The game saw 25 points scored in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter. In overtime, the chiefs scored on their first possession, preventing the Bills from having a chance to respond. Outside of the Chiefs-Bills game, both the Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their games, preventing Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady a shot at the Super bowl. With their loss, both Brady and Rodgers may have played their last games as discussions of their potential retirements occur.

The final topic of today is the world of motorsports and the upcoming starts of the various racing series seasons. The first major event of the new year is IMSA’s 24 hours of Daytona, which will have taken place already by the time this article is published as it is being contested on January 29th and 30th. The next major racing series to kick off their season will be NASCAR, with their exhibition race in the L.A. Coliseum taking place on February 6th and the Daytona 500 taking place on February 20th. After NASCAR, Indycar will kick off their season on February 27th, and Formula One will kick off the season on March 20th.

Well, that is it for this brief overview of recent news. Hopefully this has helped you emerge from below the rock and into the happenings of the world. Enjoy the start of the new semester and good luck everyone in your new classes.

Busting The Filibuster: A Shortsighted By Julius Apostata Decision

Talk to anyone, and you are bound to find many that hold very abstract ideas about ideal governance: if only we could pass our specific legislation, all of society’s problems would be immediately solved, and that the failure to pass such laws in Congress is only the result of those that do not want what’s best for America (with these Congressmen and Senators being paid off at best, or morally bankrupt and unethical at worst). Given this viewpoint, it would be best to characterize such Manichean statements as vastly oversimplified. Our legislative system was built upon a system of compromise, in which checks and balances prevented abuses of power. It should thus come as somewhat of a surprise as to why the filibuster has been all the talk in the news recently; a recent attempt by Senate Democrats was made to eliminate the current means of filibustering, which ultimately failed. Of course, this prompted the use of reckless rhetoric by President Biden (reckless rhetoric, mind you, that I would expect from former President Trump) that only sows the seeds of division in our country. With all this being said, I wish to argue that the current version of the filibuster is a necessary tool in our Senate.

First, it is important to clear up a minor misconception when it comes to the Senate filibuster: it was not written into the Constitution. Rather, the filibuster as we know it has origins several decades after our country’s founding, being first used in 1837. In the Senate, the basic premise of the filibuster works like this: a senator that wishes to either delay or prevent the passing of legislation could invoke the filibuster, in which they could speak for as long as they want on any topic they choose. Later political developments meant that a filibuster doesn’t even need a standing speech, but rather a 60% majority preventing cloture in the Senate, effectively meaning that major legislation requires either a 60% majority or compromise of the actual legislation. In the past, this has led to some rather lengthy filibusters, for noble and, at times, not-so-noble reasons. For instance, the filibuster was infamously exploited to delay civil-rights legislation in the past by those such as Strom Thurmond. It was also used more recently, with Senate Democrats using the filibuster 327 times to halt Republican proposals because, in the words of Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), the Senate Republicans were not willing to negotiate changes to legislation in a bipartisan manner. It should also be noted that a filibuster doesn’t automatically kill a piece of legislation, but more often than not filibusters tend to fail. The point I am trying to make with this explanation is that the filibuster is simply a tool within each Senator’s toolkit. election subversion, and how at such a moment you could either be “Dr. King or George Wallace.” Ignoring the blatantly tribalistic and demagogic nature of this speech, Biden also alludes to the filibuster as being the thing that stands in the way of progress. However, say we enter a future in which the filibuster was scratched for political purposes (as doing so would allow the majority party to have full political power). In this scenario, large states would be able to completely dominate legislative agendas in the House of Representatives, with no input from the minority party. While at first this might not seem like that big of a deal, especially if you belong to that majority party, consider what would happen if, in the next election cycle, the opposition party won the majority, with plans to enact sweeping legislation at the expense of the agenda of the former ruling party and their constituents. There was a reason why Senate Democrats enacted the filibuster 327 times during Trump’s presidency: having it is necessary to reach across party lines and reach some form of compromise that satisfies both parties.

It’s understandable that Biden and Senate Democrats are frustrated with the fact that their full agenda has not come to fruition because of the filibuster. Yet eliminating the tool that is meant to reach across party lines would be effectively removing whatever safeguards are left in an increasingly polarized political environment. Even the rhetoric being used by those such as Biden should give one pause in the broader implications that such a removal might have. We should, therefore, keep the filibuster so that we could be able to have a means of reaching across political divisions, of attempting to reach a compromise, and to bring down the temperature in an increasingly partisan environment. Besides, you never know for sure who might be the next party to take power and what their proposed laws will be.

“However, it is important to realize that the filibuster is a necessary legislative tool designed as a safeguard that, while abused in the past, still represents an important mechanism for compromise that attempts to represent the interests of all in a democracy.”

With this very brief explanation in mind, many have recently begun to attack the filibuster, arguing that its existence is an impediment to governance. However, it is important to realize that the filibuster is a necessary legislative tool designed as a safeguard that, while abused in the past, still represents an important mechanism for compromise that attempts to represent the interests of all in a democracy. The complete elimination of this safeguard could have unforeseen consequences. Let’s consider, for instance, President Biden’s speech on January 11th, in which a speech about voting rights devolved into an “us-versusthem” polemic, where “Jim Crow 2.0” was promoting voter suppression and