Carpet_pissr wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 8:56 am
Completely disagree about November being ‘the turning point’. I honestly believe we just passed it with these two decisions. SC showing true colors now and not giving a fuck. At least before Roberts was still protesting about how they were impartial. Now he’s just letting it ride.
So much more important than any one presidential election. SC is firmly in control of the reigns now.
People will be arguing what the turning point was for decades - Trump's election? RvW? McConnell holding back a SC nomination? Clinton's impeachment?
November is not the turning point.
November is the point-of-no-return. Everything until then is just stacking the odds, and those odds are getting slimmer and slimmer.
SCOTUS is openly putting a heavy thumb on the next election. They're untouchable and they're working to make TFG the same.
We're living through the slow-motion end of the American Republic. Historians will be explaining and reinterpreting these days for the next century, possibly millennia, just as they're still studying the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I'm chagrined that it's happening on our watch, and we're all but powerless to prevent it. I'm sure a lot of Germans felt like this in the 1930s.
Maybe an empire will rise that turns the American republic into a mere prelude, again as happened in Rome. Trump is no Julius Caesar, so it's an inauspicious beginning, but the Roman Empire didn't get cooking until Augustus came along, and we have no idea what's going to follow TFG's Ides of March.
...and I consider that the optimistic view.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 11:35 am
by LawBeefaroni
Will there even be historians? When we start nuking hurricanes to combat climate change and get our book science learnin' from the Bible, I suspect written history will disappear. Oral history too, probably.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 11:36 am
by Unagi
I didn't pay enough attention in grade school. In this system of checks and balances, what was the check on the SC? Was it that a super majority of the congress could impeach them?
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, established Project 2025 with the goal of "building a governing agenda, not just for next January but long into the future.
Beeg Smile
Beeg Smile
It's the death of Godwin's Law.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 12:30 pm
by Zaxxon
LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 11:35 am
Will there even be historians? When we start nuking hurricanes to combat climate change and get our book science learnin' from the Bible, I suspect written history will disappear. Oral history too, probably.
Punisher wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2024 11:29 am
Man, think of all the jaywalking I could do. Stop signs? Just suggestions I can ignore!
Come on guys! Vote me in! You'll all get a position on my staff.
So your criminal empire would primarily consist of you constantly crossing against the light?
You, sir, are the Moriarty of Moving Violations.
Even Moriarty had to start somewhere.
From there I might expand to include graffiti..
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 1:05 pm
by hepcat
My God! Left unchecked, you'll eventually include going 3 miles over the speed limit and temporary littering (the unlawful act of dropping litter on the sidewalk and then picking it up almost immediately and disposing of it in a trash receptacle....but for those 30 seconds it's on the sidewalk, it's pandemonium).
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:11 pm
by Smoove_B
Was waiting for the super-cut
SUPERCUT: “No one is above the law.” @keithedwards gathered all the conservative justices lying to Congress at their senate confirmation hearings in one place.
So weird that they all said it during their confirmation hearing and yet ruled exactly he opposite yesterday. I guess we truly will never understand the mind of a Supreme Court Justice.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:13 pm
by YellowKing
They lied about Roe as well.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:16 pm
by Smoove_B
They sure did and yet nothing was done to them in the days and months that followed.
This is what frustrates me beyond words. We are not going to "vote like hell" to fix this. To be clear, voting is important but the people that are sitting in office right now looking around like a confused John Travolta are making me insane.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:18 pm
by Zarathud
It will take a decade of strategic voting to build the majority to undo the damage. It’s an opportunity for new faces to build political power and lead.
Former President Donald Trump amplified posts on social media calling for a televised military tribunal for former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and the jailing of top elected officials, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” one post created by another user that Trump amplified on his social media website Truth Social on Sunday reads. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
A separate post Trump amplified on Truth Social Sunday includes photos of 15 former and current elected officials and says, “THEY SHOULD BE GOING TO JAIL ON MONDAY NOT STEVE BANNON!”
In addition to Biden and Harris, the post includes photos of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Mike Pence and members of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
What we get to look forward to next year.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:30 pm
by Smoove_B
Zarathud wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:18 pm
It will take a decade of strategic voting to build the majority to undo the damage.
We don't have a decade to "build" on anything. I feel like the last 12+ years were politically squandered and now we're seeing the end result of decades of GOP ratfuckery.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:33 pm
by YellowKing
The scary thing about this ruling is that we no longer have the option of getting the President wrong. If Biden is re-elected, we're just kicking the can a few more years. Eventually the luck will run out, and it's game over. The first Republican to get back into the White House is going to do everything in their power (now unlimited!) to make sure we never have another Democratic president.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:34 pm
by LawBeefaroni
Why military tribunals? Because they're extra-judicial? Or is it just because they sound tougher?
Zarathud wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:18 pm
It will take a decade of strategic voting to build the majority to undo the damage.
We don't have a decade to "build" on anything. I feel like the last 12+ years were politically squandered and now we're seeing the end result of decades of GOP ratfuckery.
Yeah, Project 2025 is going to make sure there isn't a way back.
Just keep your head down and hope they don't come for you next.
Edit: I should point out that Project 2025 is the finale of the right- wing's plan to "undo the damage" they claim was wrought by liberals over the past 30+ years. It's blind ideology and history is full of examples of what happens next.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:38 pm
by LordMortis
Zarathud wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:18 pm
It will take a decade of strategic voting to build the majority to undo the damage. It’s an opportunity for new faces to build political power and lead.
That's within my power and what I'm doing. It also ends every single conversation I have with anyone who goes on about how liberals are destroying this or that. No GOP until McConnell's pride is undone. None. Not at any level. You aren't OK with McConnell's pride, you should be on on a GOP ticket.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 6:46 pm
by Kraken
YellowKing wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:33 pm
The scary thing about this ruling is that we no longer have the option of getting the President wrong. If Biden is re-elected, we're just kicking the can a few more years. Eventually the luck will run out, and it's game over. The first Republican to get back into the White House is going to do everything in their power (now unlimited!) to make sure we never have another Democratic president.
Unless Biden (or Harris) can appoint three new justices, and the Senate approves them. That's a lot of IFs, but it's the only way out that I can see.
HCR ended today's column with "Today’s decision destroyed the principle on which this nation was founded, that all people in the United States of America should be equal before the law. The name of the case is “Donald J. Trump v. United States.”"
Y'all absolutely should read her column if you haven't already.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2024 7:13 pm
by Holman
LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 11:35 am
Will there even be historians? When we start nuking hurricanes to combat climate change and get our book science learnin' from the Bible, I suspect written history will disappear. Oral history too, probably.
Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE concludes with an appendix: the proceedings of a history conference focused on the provenance of the recorded tapes that form the text of the novel itself. It's set about 100 years after the novel, and it's notable that the presenting scholars are all from the global South and that they treat Gilead as a historical disaster and a curiosity.
Many readers and reviewers have seen this coda to the novel as a kind of cop-out and escapist refusal of its themes.
KEVIN ROBERTS (HERITAGE FOUNDATION PRESIDENT): In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back. No one in the audience should be despairing.
No one should be discouraged. We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday. And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail.
...
And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
Not even a veiled threat.
"The Red States are coming! The Red States are coming!"
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 10:59 am
by Smoove_B
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Jul 03, 2024 10:56 am
Not even a veiled threat.
And still, about 1/3 of eligible voters will sit this next election out, for reasons.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 11:21 am
by WYBaugh
Just understand their point of view /s
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 11:22 am
by hepcat
They want a revolution and the subsequent dominance of a puritanical right dictating what's right and wrong based on a text they don't even follow themselves?
Or they just don't care if there's a revolution and the subsequent dominance of a puritanical right dictating what's right and wrong based on a text they don't even follow themselves?
...probably the second.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 11:34 am
by Smoove_B
Kraken wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 6:46 pm
Y'all absolutely should read her column if you haven't already.
Reading is hard! Watch her instead
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 12:17 pm
by LawBeefaroni
What happens when the SCOTUS won't annul the King's prenup? Do we get The Great Court Reformation? Does Melania get the SEAL Team 6 treatment or just disappeared to a dark site?
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 12:42 pm
by Victoria Raverna
YellowKing wrote: Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:33 pm
The scary thing about this ruling is that we no longer have the option of getting the President wrong. If Biden is re-elected, we're just kicking the can a few more years. Eventually the luck will run out, and it's game over. The first Republican to get back into the White House is going to do everything in their power (now unlimited!) to make sure we never have another Democratic president.
That is why Biden need to be the dictator first and make changes to prevent that future. If he doesn't want to maybe get rid of him then Harris can make the tough decision to become the first dictator of USA.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 12:54 pm
by YellowKing
There seems to be a vast oversimplification going around of what this decision does. It makes the President immune from prosecution for official acts. It doesn't suddenly unlock God-like powers of the Executive Branch he never had before.
So the talk of "why doesn't Biden just eliminate the Supreme Court and install a new Supreme Court" and the like doesn't make any sense. It's not that simple.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 8:43 pm
by Victoria Raverna
Seal Team 6 solution to get rid of obstacle is now not so crazy anymore. President can get rid of anyone permanently and immune from prosecution. Getting rid of political rivals? Immune. Getting rid of supreme court justices? Immune. He can practically save the world by killing a few bad people officially.
So he doesn't need to eliminate supreme court. Just eliminate bad judges so that he can appoint new judges.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 10:02 pm
by hepcat
I agree with YK. I think folks are going to 11 over this. It sucks, but we’re not suddenly living in Putin’s Russia or Iran. We have checks and balances that will prevent one man, or one group, from suddenly killing their enemies and declaring themselves kings or whatever. I hate what’s happening, but we have had tumultuous periods in our country before and we’ve survived. Often coming out the other end stronger.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:03 am
by Kraken
hepcat wrote: Wed Jul 03, 2024 10:02 pm
I agree with YK. I think folks are going to 11 over this. It sucks, but we’re not suddenly living in Putin’s Russia or Iran. We have checks and balances that will prevent one man, or one group, from suddenly killing their enemies and declaring themselves kings or whatever. I hate what’s happening, but we have had tumultuous periods in our country before and we’ve survived. Often coming out the other end stronger.
There are two reasons to freak out: The founding principle that all Americans are equal before the law has been overturned; and SCOTUS is the final arbiter of what constitutes an official presidential duty. Biden or any Democratic POTUS won't get away with jack shit, but trump will have free rein to persecute rivals, stifle dissent, deploy the military in blue cities under the Insurrection Act under any flimsy excuse, and generally behave as Putin or Orban. 11 is an appropriate setting.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:12 am
by hepcat
You were under the impression that all Americans were equal before the law up until recently?
Presidential immunity has existed for years in one way or another. I’m not saying the SCOTUS isn’t any less corrupt or bias, or that Trump isn’t a dangerous jackass, just that this situation isn’t an 11. And by 11, I mean seal team six assassinating political rivals or trump declaring martial law for political revenge (which has been tossed around as possible scenarios).
I’m more concerned with the less sensational incidents that slowly erode civil rights away, or a loss of allies overseas due to a petulant child mistaking bullying for diplomacy, and not a MAGA Red Dawn overnight.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:31 am
by Victoria Raverna
Killing political rivals or any obstacle is a real danger with the immunity. There is no check and balance to stop that after the supreme court decision. You can't resurrect a dead person.
Now this can be used by both side. Easier for Trump and his side because they now control the supreme court but also can be used by the Democrats. The Democrats just need to make sure that they can replace enough supreme court judges first.
It'll be too late when people realize it is an 11 situation. If Trump win, there'll be no more democracy. The future belong to GOP.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:43 am
by hepcat
It all comes down to the definition of “official acts”. And I seriously doubt that assassinating political rivals would be declared an official act by any court.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:59 am
by Victoria Raverna
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:43 am
It all comes down to the definition of “official acts”. And I seriously doubt that assassinating political rivals would be declared an official act by any court.
Not even the current Supreme court if Trump does that?
In their dissents, both Sotomayor and Jackson addressed the question of whether a president would have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts of murder -- including ordering the assassination of a political rival.
"This new official-acts immunity now 'lies about like a loaded weapon' for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
When the president "uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution," she continued. "Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune."
In her dissent, Jackson wrote that a hypothetical president "who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics" would have a "fair shot at getting immunity" under this new "accountability model."
"In the end, then, under the majority's new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud, or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends," she wrote.
---
During the arguments, Justice Samuel Alito referred back to a president's hypothetical use of the military as elite assassins as he and Sotomayor split on whether "plausibleness" was a useful standard for scrutiny versus "reasonable."
"One might argue that it isn't plausibly legal to order SEAL Team 6 -- and I don't want to slander SEAL Team 6 because they're -- no, seriously -- they're honorable, they're honorable officers and they are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice not to obey unlawful orders," Alito said. "But ... I think one could say it's not plausible that is legal, that that action would be legal."
To Sauer, he said, "I'm sure you've thought of lots of hypotheticals where a president could say, 'I'm using an official power,' and yet the power uses it in an absolutely outrageous manner."
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:09 am
by hepcat
Not even the current Supreme Court.
Assassinating political rivals is not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution, last I checked.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 2:16 am
by Kraken
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 12:12 am
You were under the impression that all Americans were equal before the law up until recently?
Americans have always been entitled to as much justice as we can afford.
I hope we're just arguing hypothetically here and aren't going to really find out just how far our fuhrer can go. I want you to be right.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 2:22 am
by Victoria Raverna
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:09 am
Not even the current Supreme Court.
Assassinating political rivals is not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution, last I checked.
Committing fraud to cover up hush money payment to porn star is also not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution especially when it occured before Trump was elected but still the supreme court decision delayed Trump sentencing.
So it is not as simple as checking the constitution for "core duty" of the President.
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:09 am
Not even the current Supreme Court.
Assassinating political rivals is not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution, last I checked.
Committing fraud to cover up hush money payment to porn star is also not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution especially when it occured before Trump was elected but still the supreme court decision delayed Trump sentencing.
So it is not as simple as checking the constitution for "core duty" of the President.
They delayed sentencing because some evidence might now be inadmissible, not because paying hush money might be an official act.
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:09 am
Not even the current Supreme Court.
Assassinating political rivals is not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution, last I checked.
Committing fraud to cover up hush money payment to porn star is also not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution especially when it occured before Trump was elected but still the supreme court decision delayed Trump sentencing.
So it is not as simple as checking the constitution for "core duty" of the President.
They delayed sentencing because some evidence might now be inadmissible, not because paying hush money might be an official act.
Then maybe all evidence of "the taking out the bad guys orders" are also going to be inadmissible?
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 6:30 am
by raydude
hepcat wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:09 am
Not even the current Supreme Court.
Assassinating political rivals is not mentioned as a core duty in the constitution, last I checked.
This is the same Supreme Court where recent justices said "The President is not above the Law" and "I will abide by Roe v. Wade" in front of Congress before being confirmed. I wouldn't put it past them if the president doing the assassinating is on their team.
Re: SCOTUS Watch
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 9:36 am
by Carpet_pissr
raydude wrote: Thu Jul 04, 2024 6:30 am
This is the same Supreme Court where recent justices said "The President is not above the Law" and "I will abide by Roe v. Wade" in front of Congress before being confirmed.
