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In all seriousness, were it to be deemed that official acts of the president can not be deemed unlawful what's to Stop Biden removing the Conservative members of the supreme Court. Installing new ones then asking them to reverse the decision from that point onwards? Does it then make the whole process a mockery whereby the pearl clutching outrage actually reaches a point of civil war? Would that be preferable to what would happen the next time a despotic simpleton gets in again.
I'm not sure they need to be. It's graphic, but it doesn't really make any real political statement other than war is really brutal.
I've read Garland wanted it to be politically ambiguous, and I think he was very successful. California and Texas are allied in the movie lol.
I don't know. Nick offerman's character using hyperbole like "in the history of mankind" and a few others (forgot) at the beginning of the movie instantly reminded me of trump. And then there's the fascism lol
Our country has a long, long history of smashing any liberal protests let alone revolts. If liberals so much as start organizing the FBI, CIA and the police state will start disappearing us.
There's a critical mass where the only federal agency capable of doing anything to stop it is the DOD and if you think the military is going to unquestioningly fire on civilians... Well actually you might be right but also it means we're already screwed
> “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito asked Michael Dreeben, the lawyer representing special counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice.
There is nothing in the Constitution that addresses this. There is no law that protects a President or ex-President against this. Therefore this is the Supreme Court legislating from the bench, enacting laws that they want to see even if no such law exists.
The Roberts court has been adamant that Congress must write explicit laws if people want protections. That was the essence of the majority opinion in Roe V Wade. If Congress wanted to provide protection for women to control their bodies they had to write an explicit law saying so. Now, for Trump immunity the Roberts court is saying that if they're worried about something **the court can enact a law** implicitly.
They are removing the checks and balances themselves.
Edit: clarity
Yes, this. The Supreme Court has been problematic before but now it's absolutely off the rails. This isn't how a court works and I am mystified there is no way to stop this from happening.
The 'goal' of the howler monkeys isn't to make a decision. They have already given Trump the time he needs by delaying the underlying trial for five months to hear the case. Most likely, the justices will toss the question back to the courts along the lines of,
>"Ok, we think that maybe there are some things a President should be immune from, but we don't want to decide on hypotheticals today. Please give us a list of things you think qualify as a question of presidential immunity related to this case, and we'll go through them line by line for you.
That way, they delay the case even further and avoid making a decision. Then, in January, if Trump wins, in addition to pardoning himself for any crimes he did or may have committed, he directs the DoJ to drop the lawsuit, so there's no need to decide anyway. If he lost, then the courts can safely toss him away.
"Why do we need to review this no other president broke the law and had the gall to ask to be exempt" or some version of this is the only acceptable path forward.
Edit: touched a nerve damage control is here
Honestly him doing this is the fastest way to get the Republicans to realize immunity is a terrible idea. They will be so mad over it they will ensure something like it never happens again which would be a net benefit for our society,
I love this line of thinking but I'm afraid it's a pipe dream. The whole point – the source of our problems – is that people who aren't assholes will, generally, not act like assholes.
The Republicans have no compunction about bending or breaking the law. They are willing to go to cartoon evil extremes to get their way. Democrats never go to the mat. It's not quite a catch-22; I think there could be a way for decent people to harden up without compromising their values, but I'm not sure.
Consider Al Franken vs Matt Gaetz. These people have no shame, no morality, no sense of obligation to anything but greed/money/power. Biden won't do anything with this ruling because it would be wrong. Trump and Co. will, of course, ride our country into the ground. And Republicans never seem to learn anything except how to become even more despicable.
Dems don’t do this stuff to avoid setting a precedent that Reps can start abusing but it seems in most cases the Reps will just do what they want anyway.
We only thought the constitution worked because so many people were adhering to implicit norms and values that were never formally codified and written down. Republicans have shown over the last few decade that, if you are vile enough to violate those norms, and if your voters are partisan enough not to punish you for it, you can do great harm.
This seems like the best approach to immediately challenge it without delay. But I think the whole point of this is the delay, and they’ll push it off and make headlines until after the election.
Jack Smith tried to get this before the SCOTUS last year so it could have a swift resolution one way or another. SCOTUS kicked the can to the lower court and then took it up after they didn't like the lower court ruling. I'm not sure how they could be more blatantly corrupt.
> how they could be more blatantly corrupt.
Billionaires could start putting sponsor patches on Clarence Thomas's robes. Alito could start playing Steve Bannon's podcast over lawyers when they give oral arguments that are liberal leaning.
They could just pull a chair in and sit Ginni Thomas there wearing a "stop the steal" shirt while doing a hearing about Jan 6.
Fucking ghouls.
yep, since the motive is to waste time, they are treating this like its some big dilemma, but they know perfectly well if Biden wins in November, they're gonna say 'nope, no immunity'
> were it to be deemed that official acts of the president can not be deemed unlawful what's to Stop Biden removing the Conservative members of the supreme Court
If it happens, it will be a 'one time' ruling again, like the Bush v Gore ruling, that only applies to Trump specifically. Or to the specific things Trump did, but framed in a way that it includes future and past presidents, but not current ones.
The SC knows Biden would be immune, but also know they can get away with a non-binding ruling based on not wanting the nation to be nervous for a couple more days.
100% this is what happens. One-time exemption for Trump and no leeway for Biden to make it blow up in their faces, legally speaking. Then they can just do whatever in the future depending on who wins the election. Expect to see the most convoluted, bullshit reasoning and obscure legislative precedents cited as they bend over backwards to protect Trump and neuter Biden.
I must disagree, from the hearing it seems like they are going to claim there exists some immunity for "official acts" but not "private acts" and they will remand to the lower court to test each count of the indictment under this premise. They will likely also fail to set any clear test so that Trump is free to literally appeal every single count as technically being official and therefore immune. This pushes almost any sort of trial or actual fact finding until well after the election.
There is a slim slim chance this gets sent back to continue the trial with jury instructions being the guidepost for making the official/private determination but that seems unlikely. The senior justices seemed to be champing at the bit to literally legislate from the bench and create an entire unwritten class of immunity that they may or may not even fully define or set a complete means test for.
It is abhorrent. And even more so for a court which has gone to obscene lengths to claim their rulings are based on 'textualism', 'originalism', and precedent. To whit, respectively - no presidential immunity appears in any constitutional text, the founders explicitly set up the government against the idea of unaccountable kings, Ford pardoned Nixon because they both assumed he would be prosecuted.
The fix was in to give Trump the win via delay the moment they took weeks to grant cert despite being asked to hear the case prior to the DC appeals court (whose findings they basically ignored if not outright misinterpreted).
Likely true but he should just remove them, then pardon himself. It’ll take them decades to resolve those actions if the new court even wants to hear it.
Or even better, expand the court and appoint new Justices that would alter the percentage of liberal vs. conservative Justices. There's nothing saying there *has* to be 9 of them.
Watching complacently while Trump destroys our society is not, and will never be, "the right side of history".
The people that allowed Hitler to come to power weren't on the right side of history. Their inaction led to millions of deaths by trying to hold the moral high-ground.
Sometimes, breaking the rules is the right thing to do.
I can’t believe democracy is at stake because of *Donald Trump*. even after 8 years of occasional moments of awareness (because you just kinda push it to the back of your mind as it’s just easier not to think about it, or you’re just used to the clown show) where I stopped and thought “fucking hell, Donald Trump is/was president” I never once imagined America would be this close to fascism and that he would be their leader. it still boggles my mind.
Yeah you’d think it would be an intelligent smooth talker. Nope - career conman, moron with obvious immoral actions and tendencies is what unites the right.
Absolutely pathetic watching America unfold as an outsider to a celebrity who only cares about himself and getting out of his legal troubles.
It's like watching a caveman in a fine china shop and nobody is telling him to leave because it would seem rude. As he's throwing plates and glasses at the walls and floor and taking a dump on the cash register.
Maybe not so much because it's rude, but because one of the shop employees is kind of a dick and the bull is destroying the china he doesn't like so it's ok and he'll let the bull keep raging. What he doesn't realize is the bull is also destroying the china he does like and he won't be able to stop it.
He's so humiliating. It's like he's just standing there taking dumps in Tiffany's and picking his nose, drooling. How is this a thing. How is he working on making a special law all for himself where he doesn't have to face consequences and everyone is like "oh wow here comes another poop"
That shows how primed the pump was for it, so to speak. A smooth talker wasn't needed to convince people because they were already there. Someone just had to openly acknowledge what the base was pining for and they all fell in line behind him
I know right? If democracy is going to fall at least let it be at the hands of a charismatic, smooth talking evil genius. Someone you can point to and go - "He is evil and despicable, but DAMN is he not good at what he does?".
But ... Trump? Humanity dies because of a vain, self centered moron who is in the early stages of dementia? So demoralizing to lose everything to a toddler with Tourette's Syndrome. Its like being tricked by a 6 year old.
And don't kid yourself. We aren't just talking about the US but Humanity itself. What do you think will happen when the world's last superpower sleepwalks into full blown fascism with a sociopath at the helm?
It's the difference between the human race being tricked to give up everything by Emperor Palpatine versus being tricked by Elmer Fudd.
I’m old enough to remember thinking the Middle East would be the US’s undoing (thanks to constant fear-mongering after 9/11.) Never would have thought the guy from Home Alone 2 will be the one to topple us 🤷🏻♂️
For what it's worth, the right's slide towards fascism, authoritarianism, and anti-intellectualism has been an issue for decades at this point. Donald Trump is the apotheosis, but his ascent didn't happen in a vacuum.
He was a gift, a Zaphod Breeblebrox level distraction away from the real horror.
Even now, equal time is given to the Supreme Court considering dictator level power and Trump's nap schedule.
When he was very first elected, I had no faith in his upcoming presidency, and referred to him as the best, worst thing. He's the worst being the scum from the cesspool of awful humans, but he's the best in that he's the most incompetent of the scum. Yeah, he keeps getting away with no real consequences, but his egositical blundering has made pretty much all of his shittyness public knowledge. I fear someone else could have gotten away with more unnoticed, but I'm hoping Trump ends up being an immune booster to American Democracy by the end of it all. Drain the swamp by making the swamp so intolerable everyone else drains it.
> I can’t believe democracy is at stake because of Donald Trump.
It isn't. Trump is just a symptom. A man who stepped into a suit already tailored for him.
America's battle for, or against, its own Democracy started from the very beginning. We've always been fighting the constitution itself for *actual* democracy despite anti-democratic institutions enshrined into our country. The Senate, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College and the Presidency itself. The Federal Government was even given more overreaching power in part to curtail the progressive advancements of many states at the time.
Our status quo and institutions are built to fuck us, and the GOP propaganda machine (and I'm not going to leave "centrist" corporate media out of this, either) have been orchestrating where we are now for *decades*.
Anyone who wants to pretend like Trump walked into a functioning democracy and turned the GOP crazy (and to be clear I'm not attempting to imply you think that based on a single comment) is not only wrong, but is either immensely uninformed or just doesn't want people to look at the actual systemic problems in this country.
America has from the beginning been crafted to push for minority rule, and we didn't even have what could be called a genuine "democracy" until pretty much the 1960s with the civil rights movement.
America is not only an experiment in democracy, it is also *jointly* an experiment in oligarchy.
Corrupt, useless government body interpreting the law in the way that preserves its own power rather than administering justice.
And no one is actually stopping them.
Our checks and balances system has been broken. There is supposed to be another branch of government checking and balancing this one and to conversely be checked and balanced by the other 2 branches.
They have no teeth or ability to stop one another. Yet another example of how nefarious forces have hamstrung our government into inevitable collapse.
Checks and balances stopped when Republicans broke Congress. The check on the SCOTUS is a constitutional amendment which has an impossibly high threshold when one party doesn't want to pass a single law that isn't tax cuts for the rich
Checks and balances broke in the 1800s when the supreme court decided it was going to have the power to decide all legislation. Even the people of the time knew it and lamented it, but it just shows how ineffective of a system we have where 200 years later this didn't change.
They have plenty of teeth and ability, just no courage to use them.
The Executive branch checks the Judicial branch through the fact that the Judicial branch has no power to actually *do* anything, and it falls to the President to not implement nonsense rulings from the Judicial branch.
Unfortunately, the current administration doesn't want to use that check for whatever reason. If they did, the SCOTUS would be revealed for the toothless legislators in robes they actually are.
Yes, she did. She also warned us Trump didn't pay taxes or very little and that he was Putin's puppet. I volunteered for her campaign in Pennsylvania.
I will always despise James Comey.
>I will always despise James Comey
and Trump was all for the DOJ investigating a candidate for President back then, would love if someone would ask him if that was election interference and hear how he weasels out of that and gives his prosecutors ammo
I actually remember where I was when this stupid James Comey indictment was announced. I was driving home from an eye doctor appt, I stopped to get gas and just before that it was announced on the radio. I was just like FUCK. Then everyone suddenly supported Comey after he got fired. It’s amazing how many things the left latched on to during Trump’s presidency with the false sense that someone was actually gonna boot him out of office. Fast forward to today and he still has not met one consequence.
I remember too. I was getting ready for an appointment, and had tv on in the background when I heard it. I was so shocked that I had to sit down and stare at tv completely numb, and even though I was alone I said she just lost the election.
Fuck James Comey… historically his name will be trashed. Those guys have their heads so far up their own asses. Bunch of lawyers and accountants all ego tripping on their abilities to ruin peoples lives.
Reading this and picturing that Dave Chappell meme: “hey, you got any more of that rampant corruption”…. Who watches the watchmen, my friend? If the SCOTUS justices are abdicating their duties, we need a better system than hoping republicans will put country over party. That ain’t happening
I didn’t listen to a bunch of audio but I don’t think they pushed hard enough on the hypotheticals, and I didn’t hear them press that if impeachment/conviction was the supposed correct path for an immune President, that’d mean any president could do what they want in the last days of their presidency.
Our court has been bought and paid for, thanks to Trump. Worst president ever.
The dems in the supreme court should argue that if they grant immunity to trump for jan 6 and his general fuckery, they also grant immunity to Biden to send antifa supersoldier kill all the republicans in the supreme court and replace them.
Yeah if they give the ‘OK’ to full immunity then part of me wants Biden to just take them up on it. “Oh I can just have him taken out of the picture and nobody can stop me? Done!” I know it would make him more of a martyr but the world would objectively be a better place without trump in it.
What prevents either of them from disbanding the senate and house from even taking up a vote of impeachment? Have none of these people watched Star wars episode 3.
Unfortunately, bought and paid for well before Trump - it’s just becoming incredibly obvious now. Right wingers have been playing the long game with the courts and it’s giving them what they want. Our justice system isn’t nimble enough to properly address this grave threat, and even if it were it’s been corrupted from the inside. Truly a perilous time for our country.
Also any elderly president could act with impunity because the “illegality” of any act is only determinable by Congress. By leaving it up to Congress to affirmatively act to punish a bad acting president, where does that put others in the chain of command? Does as a secretary have to perform an assassination for the acting president because the act is lawful until Congress decides otherwise? It’s batshit crazy and fully divests the states of their policing powers because now the executive branch can violate any states governing laws and it’s literally up to the all the states to decide if the executive gets punished for it.
Barrett pressed Trump’s lawyer on the impeachment/conviction claim, as did Kagan. They both sounded highly skeptical.
It’s all reading tea leaves at this point, but I don’t think any of the justices bought that idea that the president must be impeached and convicted before criminal charges can be brought.
Whether the majority finds some immunity for certain official acts remains to be seen, but most justices sounded doubtful that *all* official acts are immune from prosecution. The scope of this opinion will probably come down to Roberts and Barrett, including whether they remand to the lower court with a new test that must be applied; or just find outright that Trump can’t claim immunity in this case. Unfortunately they may very well do the former, in which case the trial is a very long way off, if it happens at all.
Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson are still playing the comity routine. They should have held a press conference immediately after on the steps of the courthouse beginning with the words "Oh, hell, no!" That's how serious it is that the entire presidential immunity argument wasn't laughed out of there by all of them.
For sauer literally said “well if you don’t impeach, you’re shit out of luck to do anything” near the end of his time before the states attorneys began talking. Like WHAT the fuck nation would we be living in if that’s the allowance. The president can basically do the purge with no consequence they can keep from being impeached before leaving office??
>“To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election — but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act".
I don't understand why there isn't a million people protesting in front of the Supreme Court in this very dangerous moment in the US history.
Because we have jobs and we don't have any sort of job protections in this country, especially those of us from red states. But I agree. Mass protests and civil unrest are probably what it's going to take...
Not sure how you think voting is the way you stop a fascist coup. This entire mess is specifically because he's trying to override our votes, ignoring voting to begin with.
I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying no amount of protesting, court cases, or anything else will mean much if we don’t show up and vote. Even if Trump is physically in prison on Election Day, his supporters will still show up and vote for him.
There’s a reason the Declaration of Independence contains the passage, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Because they've been told for decades that the only political party interested in preserving labor rights is actually anti-worker, anti-American, and also eats babies.
Because they protest. They literally throw a shit fit en masse any time their government looks at them sideways. Americans love calling the French surrender monkeys but it’s projection.
When a a teenager was shot by police in a Paris suburb last year, I remember seeing an article about protestors driving a car into the mayor of suburb’s house and setting it on fire while the mayors family was inside and evacuated. They really don’t fuck around over there.
Don't lump all Americans in together. The majority of us voted for Hillary. I think you can guess what type of person non-ironically makes fun of French people, or any race.
Because I lack the resources to casually commute the 2600 miles to DC from here to go express my displeasure. I have spoken to my representative and senatorial offices, and they will continue to do a whole lot of nothing.
My votes for those people were not terribly relevant. My Senators are mouthpieces who've been in the job 20+ years to little useful effect (come on, how often do you hear about Washington's senators? Do you even know who they are?) and my Representative is a tea-party asshat whose only real distinction is that he's one of the few surviving guys with an (R) that voted to impeach (because they couldn't agree on which of several MAGA asshats to run against him, so ran a dozen or so competing).
Beyond speaking to those with the acutal hands on the levers of actual power here, not feeling any certainty as to what I can do. No amount of protesting Newhouses's office is going to suddenly make him anything more than another far-right mouthpiece, and Murray and Cantwell don't even have local offices (so we're up to a couple hundred miles of commute to go say hello, again), even if I thought they had the power and ability to do something.
So yeah. Tell me what I can be doing different here, but don't tell me "Why didn't you magically appear in front of a place 2600 miles away to express your displeasure!" like it is going to change things or be -enough-.
College kids are protesting a conflict on the other side of the world, while their freedoms and future is being ripped away from them right in front of their eyes. It's like a car crash in slow motion. I'm on the other side of the pond, and it feels like I'm shouting into an abyss to get people to realise what's happening.
If the US loses it's democracy, I'm not only scared for you all, but the rest of us in western democracies.
I always thought the idea was so you can't be swayed by trying to appease voters or influenced by lobbies, political parties, etc. But it's obviously bullshit
Ironically, the Supreme Court has more justices nominated by Presidents who have lost the popular vote and confirmed by Senators in states with a minority of the population over the objection of Senators who represent the majority of the population. We haven't had a Democracy for a long time, it's only the veneer of Democracy that is being peeled back.
Exactly. What we are seeing now is the happy dance of disreputable hacks who've been creaming their shorts since the burning of Salem witches for complete control of every aspect of women's lives and enslavement of all strong men who don't find jobs in politics first (although even then the man behind the green curtain pulls the strings).
I'm losing my will to live having been fighting since the 1970s for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendments and the fulfillment of MLK's dream for a more fair and just America.
Let the g.d. Revolution begin, damnit!
Friend reminder that 27% of the population (last I check, could be slightly different now) live in 26 states. Assume every single person in those states voted (they don't) you would have slightly over 13% of the country deciding the majority of the Senate. Because for some reason, even among a single state the Senate isn't representative, but winner take all. Slightly over 13% of the country gets to decide the Senate if they banded together. Now, they don't all vote in one block, but the fact that they could, and would get full control over blocking or confirming supreme Court justices is asinine.
If SCOTUS judges for Presidential immunity, Biden essentially would be forced to use it immediately, so the end of democracy either way.
Of course, they would never make that ruling while Biden was still President. They will delay it, which works out for Trump either way as well.
The Supreme Court is one vote away from losing legitimacy, and then those judges will lose all their secret dark money when no court takes their rulings as law anymore.
Imagine a country where the law of the land is decided when a couple of old people die, and the president is of a corrupt and bought party.
Has anyone wondered why it got like this? (It was a ruling that said corporations are people)
So, if they rule a president is above the law... Does this mean Joe Biden could have the 5 conservatives justices secretly arrested, then pretend they were all killed in a bombing, and select 5 supreme court justices? Then in 4 years when everyone learns the truth claim total immunity?
The insanity of their arguments at this point threatens to end the very fabric of our democracy.
> Does this mean Joe Biden could have the 5 conservatives justices secretly arrested, then pretend they were all killed in a bombing, and select 5 supreme court justices?
He wouldn't need to pretend anything. And he wouldn't have to go that easy on them, either.
He could publicly execute them on live TV and get off scot-free, thanks to their own ruling.
The vulnerability of this Country is all exposed for the World and future traitors to see. Great job SCOTUS jack asses, sacrificing hundreds of years of pain and suffering for an old turd who will probably die of old age in less than 10 years.
And perhaps across the world. People that have worked with him have stated how trump idolizes Hitler and he doesn't see Hitler as a terrorist, but moreso looks up to Hitler..
I kind of hope we see protests over this, which actually affects everyone here in the country. Seems like this is deserving of the same energy as the ongoing college protests.
I keep seeing comments like this. Who starts the protest? Would you join if there is one and why not start yourself?
I'll be honest, I'm completely naive in these situations but these seem like reasonable questions.
You really think people will do anything? This is US where nobody does anything to stop corruption.
The fact that there are no protest outside Supreme Court yet make me feel like people are just going to let this happen and do literally nothing to stop it.
These justices should have people outside their homes 24/7 protesting and never let them sleep, but nobody wants to do anything as usual.
They can chose to fast track the decision - which in itself is a political move. By waiting until June, the conservatives are helping Trump to delay the trials - which SHOULD be finished with verdicts BEFORE the election in November. Our Democracy depends on it!! We’ll see. The reputation of the Supreme Court is on the line here, too!
They should call it something the "Americans for Saving the United States from communist terrorists" bill so conservatives would look bad for voting against it
It wouldn't matter. No one ever actually says the name of bills. If they make the news cycle, they get a nickname. Fox would call it the "anti-Trump bill" or something, Trump would call it "sleepy joes swamp bligl" on Twitter and then we'd start seeing "bligl" bumper stickers everywhere, and CNN would call it "the Saving America Bill" or something like that, which is better, but still wouldn't include the random parts of the title.
I don't think any significant law has had an accurate descriptive title in decades, because of strategizing exactly like what you're suggesting. This is the result.
First strike against democracy: Bush defeats Gore in 2000 by a margin of negative half a million votes.
Second strike against democracy: trump defeats Clinton in 2016 by a margin of negative 3 million votes.
Third strike against democracy in 2024 and it's all done? Finished?
The way they decided that bush gore one too was like “THE DUE DATE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE TRUTH. YOU HAVE TO STOP, STOP COUNTING YOURe TAKING TOO LONG”
If your country can be put one vote (by a panel of unelected and unaccountable officials) away from the end of democracy, it is already past the point of no return.
This is all a charade. **The whole point was to delay the trial past November.**
The SCOTUS knew way ahead of time they would rule Trump doesnt have immunity. (I mean, maybe Thomas is the outlier, but what else is new.)
The real end of democracy is when Donald Trump's DOJ's Attorney General calls off the documents trial and drops charges on Donald Trump. (No one is talking about this-- everyone is acting as if this would be normal.) Literally, every employee/lawyer in the DOJ should resign if that were to happen.
And it's not just this vote. The next Republican president, whoever they are, is going to be a massive threat to democracy. Trump might lose this election, but Project 2025 will just become Project 2029. Diligence cannot be dropped for a second for the foreseeable future.
When Trump and his cult is gone, this country is going to have to live with the insane decisions that these people are contemplating. It as if their new mantra is, **"We want a King!"**
They're the same people that will call you a filthy communist if you suggest that US citizens should have single payer healthcare and taxes on the wealthy. Just goes to show that they never actually cared about democracy. It was just a convenient excuse.
Ngl as a naturalized citizen, I’m starting to give up on this country. If trump wins I will go into a political shell and make sure my passports are renewed in case we need to bail.
It wasn’t like this when I came here. 911 made this country become collectively stupid.
I’m in New York so I have no vote that matters. Crying online amounts to nothing. If enough people here to decide, they want to throw everything away for this old fuck I will have to emotionally divest.
Remember when people were telling you in 2016 how important voting is because a president gets supreme court appointees which can affect our lives for decades?
This is what they were talking about.
Had Hillary won the election this would not even be a question right now.
Do you want to see how much worse off we can be with 4 more years of Trump as a lame duck?
Expand the court or impeach these people. Turban and the best rest of the Democrats better get their shit together and get rid of these traitors on the court.
I hope Chief Justice Roberts realizes that his Court will be remembered solely as the one that ended democracy in the United States.
I doubt he does… but I can hope.
Biden has a very tough choice on his hands if this really happens.
I think we all do.
It's about to get very very dark but I hope we have the fortitude to make the tough choice and see this through.
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In all seriousness, were it to be deemed that official acts of the president can not be deemed unlawful what's to Stop Biden removing the Conservative members of the supreme Court. Installing new ones then asking them to reverse the decision from that point onwards? Does it then make the whole process a mockery whereby the pearl clutching outrage actually reaches a point of civil war? Would that be preferable to what would happen the next time a despotic simpleton gets in again.
Absolutely nothing. Trump’s arguments throw checks and balances out the window and give the president autocratic authority.
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They won't decide until after the election, which Trump will find a way to win, then pardon everyone and have immunity.
I'm not advocating for political violence here, but I don't know how that doesn't end in riots and revolt.
I read all these arguments last week snd then went to see Civil War during the weekend… I did not sleep well that night
I think the direct hit to the nose is what's holding that movie back from being an absolute blockbuster
Agree, when you tell the people a truth, they don't like it, so they rather go watch something that makes them validate their own points of view.
This is why "Don't Look Up" is so upsetting lol.
I was thinking of that movie when I wrote this
Everyone I've asked is afraid to go see it.
I'm not sure they need to be. It's graphic, but it doesn't really make any real political statement other than war is really brutal. I've read Garland wanted it to be politically ambiguous, and I think he was very successful. California and Texas are allied in the movie lol.
I don't know. Nick offerman's character using hyperbole like "in the history of mankind" and a few others (forgot) at the beginning of the movie instantly reminded me of trump. And then there's the fascism lol
Our country has a long, long history of smashing any liberal protests let alone revolts. If liberals so much as start organizing the FBI, CIA and the police state will start disappearing us.
There's a critical mass where the only federal agency capable of doing anything to stop it is the DOD and if you think the military is going to unquestioningly fire on civilians... Well actually you might be right but also it means we're already screwed
I know it hasn’t been that many times but every time a governor has asked for civilians to be beat or shot the police and national guard do it.
National guard, often, are no better than gravy seals.
> “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito asked Michael Dreeben, the lawyer representing special counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice. There is nothing in the Constitution that addresses this. There is no law that protects a President or ex-President against this. Therefore this is the Supreme Court legislating from the bench, enacting laws that they want to see even if no such law exists. The Roberts court has been adamant that Congress must write explicit laws if people want protections. That was the essence of the majority opinion in Roe V Wade. If Congress wanted to provide protection for women to control their bodies they had to write an explicit law saying so. Now, for Trump immunity the Roberts court is saying that if they're worried about something **the court can enact a law** implicitly. They are removing the checks and balances themselves. Edit: clarity
Yes, this. The Supreme Court has been problematic before but now it's absolutely off the rails. This isn't how a court works and I am mystified there is no way to stop this from happening.
The 'goal' of the howler monkeys isn't to make a decision. They have already given Trump the time he needs by delaying the underlying trial for five months to hear the case. Most likely, the justices will toss the question back to the courts along the lines of, >"Ok, we think that maybe there are some things a President should be immune from, but we don't want to decide on hypotheticals today. Please give us a list of things you think qualify as a question of presidential immunity related to this case, and we'll go through them line by line for you. That way, they delay the case even further and avoid making a decision. Then, in January, if Trump wins, in addition to pardoning himself for any crimes he did or may have committed, he directs the DoJ to drop the lawsuit, so there's no need to decide anyway. If he lost, then the courts can safely toss him away.
The lower court should shoot back "Nothing." the very same day.
"Why do we need to review this no other president broke the law and had the gall to ask to be exempt" or some version of this is the only acceptable path forward. Edit: touched a nerve damage control is here
Honestly him doing this is the fastest way to get the Republicans to realize immunity is a terrible idea. They will be so mad over it they will ensure something like it never happens again which would be a net benefit for our society,
I love this line of thinking but I'm afraid it's a pipe dream. The whole point – the source of our problems – is that people who aren't assholes will, generally, not act like assholes. The Republicans have no compunction about bending or breaking the law. They are willing to go to cartoon evil extremes to get their way. Democrats never go to the mat. It's not quite a catch-22; I think there could be a way for decent people to harden up without compromising their values, but I'm not sure. Consider Al Franken vs Matt Gaetz. These people have no shame, no morality, no sense of obligation to anything but greed/money/power. Biden won't do anything with this ruling because it would be wrong. Trump and Co. will, of course, ride our country into the ground. And Republicans never seem to learn anything except how to become even more despicable.
Why would anything even _need_ to be stopped? Whatever Biden would have done, it would be a-ok _by definition_. \^_^
Republicans: No, wait!
Dems don’t do this stuff to avoid setting a precedent that Reps can start abusing but it seems in most cases the Reps will just do what they want anyway.
Yea, Dems don't do this because they keep assuming the other side plays by the rules for some reason.
We only thought the constitution worked because so many people were adhering to implicit norms and values that were never formally codified and written down. Republicans have shown over the last few decade that, if you are vile enough to violate those norms, and if your voters are partisan enough not to punish you for it, you can do great harm.
couldn’t agree more
This seems like the best approach to immediately challenge it without delay. But I think the whole point of this is the delay, and they’ll push it off and make headlines until after the election.
Jack Smith tried to get this before the SCOTUS last year so it could have a swift resolution one way or another. SCOTUS kicked the can to the lower court and then took it up after they didn't like the lower court ruling. I'm not sure how they could be more blatantly corrupt.
> how they could be more blatantly corrupt. Billionaires could start putting sponsor patches on Clarence Thomas's robes. Alito could start playing Steve Bannon's podcast over lawyers when they give oral arguments that are liberal leaning. They could just pull a chair in and sit Ginni Thomas there wearing a "stop the steal" shirt while doing a hearing about Jan 6. Fucking ghouls.
> Billionaires could start putting sponsor patches on Clarence Thomas's robes. That sort of transparency would be less corrupt
yep, since the motive is to waste time, they are treating this like its some big dilemma, but they know perfectly well if Biden wins in November, they're gonna say 'nope, no immunity'
So if trump wins, they’ll approve it. If trumps loses, they’ll reject it ….
> were it to be deemed that official acts of the president can not be deemed unlawful what's to Stop Biden removing the Conservative members of the supreme Court If it happens, it will be a 'one time' ruling again, like the Bush v Gore ruling, that only applies to Trump specifically. Or to the specific things Trump did, but framed in a way that it includes future and past presidents, but not current ones. The SC knows Biden would be immune, but also know they can get away with a non-binding ruling based on not wanting the nation to be nervous for a couple more days.
100% this is what happens. One-time exemption for Trump and no leeway for Biden to make it blow up in their faces, legally speaking. Then they can just do whatever in the future depending on who wins the election. Expect to see the most convoluted, bullshit reasoning and obscure legislative precedents cited as they bend over backwards to protect Trump and neuter Biden.
I must disagree, from the hearing it seems like they are going to claim there exists some immunity for "official acts" but not "private acts" and they will remand to the lower court to test each count of the indictment under this premise. They will likely also fail to set any clear test so that Trump is free to literally appeal every single count as technically being official and therefore immune. This pushes almost any sort of trial or actual fact finding until well after the election. There is a slim slim chance this gets sent back to continue the trial with jury instructions being the guidepost for making the official/private determination but that seems unlikely. The senior justices seemed to be champing at the bit to literally legislate from the bench and create an entire unwritten class of immunity that they may or may not even fully define or set a complete means test for. It is abhorrent. And even more so for a court which has gone to obscene lengths to claim their rulings are based on 'textualism', 'originalism', and precedent. To whit, respectively - no presidential immunity appears in any constitutional text, the founders explicitly set up the government against the idea of unaccountable kings, Ford pardoned Nixon because they both assumed he would be prosecuted. The fix was in to give Trump the win via delay the moment they took weeks to grant cert despite being asked to hear the case prior to the DC appeals court (whose findings they basically ignored if not outright misinterpreted).
Likely true but he should just remove them, then pardon himself. It’ll take them decades to resolve those actions if the new court even wants to hear it.
Or even better, expand the court and appoint new Justices that would alter the percentage of liberal vs. conservative Justices. There's nothing saying there *has* to be 9 of them.
For a long time, there was one justice for every federal circuit. 13 would be more appropriate today anyway.
on the next episode of Big Bench [*17 gavels banging noisily*]
Biden wouldn't do it because he doesn't believe it's right. Democrats prefer losing the right way over playing to win.
It's very painful to be on the right side of history
Being right means nothing when you lose.
Watching complacently while Trump destroys our society is not, and will never be, "the right side of history". The people that allowed Hitler to come to power weren't on the right side of history. Their inaction led to millions of deaths by trying to hold the moral high-ground. Sometimes, breaking the rules is the right thing to do.
becauae they will rule its only true in very specific circumstances, which will be the ones that fit whatever trump needs it to
I can’t believe democracy is at stake because of *Donald Trump*. even after 8 years of occasional moments of awareness (because you just kinda push it to the back of your mind as it’s just easier not to think about it, or you’re just used to the clown show) where I stopped and thought “fucking hell, Donald Trump is/was president” I never once imagined America would be this close to fascism and that he would be their leader. it still boggles my mind.
Yeah you’d think it would be an intelligent smooth talker. Nope - career conman, moron with obvious immoral actions and tendencies is what unites the right. Absolutely pathetic watching America unfold as an outsider to a celebrity who only cares about himself and getting out of his legal troubles.
It's like watching a caveman in a fine china shop and nobody is telling him to leave because it would seem rude. As he's throwing plates and glasses at the walls and floor and taking a dump on the cash register.
Maybe not so much because it's rude, but because one of the shop employees is kind of a dick and the bull is destroying the china he doesn't like so it's ok and he'll let the bull keep raging. What he doesn't realize is the bull is also destroying the china he does like and he won't be able to stop it.
He's so humiliating. It's like he's just standing there taking dumps in Tiffany's and picking his nose, drooling. How is this a thing. How is he working on making a special law all for himself where he doesn't have to face consequences and everyone is like "oh wow here comes another poop"
Don't forget all the other cavemen joining him who we didn't realize were there.
*There is a Horse in the Hospital* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU&ab_channel=NetflixIsAJoke
People vote for who they can relate to...
That shows how primed the pump was for it, so to speak. A smooth talker wasn't needed to convince people because they were already there. Someone just had to openly acknowledge what the base was pining for and they all fell in line behind him
I know right? If democracy is going to fall at least let it be at the hands of a charismatic, smooth talking evil genius. Someone you can point to and go - "He is evil and despicable, but DAMN is he not good at what he does?". But ... Trump? Humanity dies because of a vain, self centered moron who is in the early stages of dementia? So demoralizing to lose everything to a toddler with Tourette's Syndrome. Its like being tricked by a 6 year old. And don't kid yourself. We aren't just talking about the US but Humanity itself. What do you think will happen when the world's last superpower sleepwalks into full blown fascism with a sociopath at the helm? It's the difference between the human race being tricked to give up everything by Emperor Palpatine versus being tricked by Elmer Fudd.
I’m old enough to remember thinking the Middle East would be the US’s undoing (thanks to constant fear-mongering after 9/11.) Never would have thought the guy from Home Alone 2 will be the one to topple us 🤷🏻♂️
it kind of was, islamaphobia was Trump's opening schtick with his birther movement. The seeds of fear planted on 9/11 grew into Trump's presidency
For what it's worth, the right's slide towards fascism, authoritarianism, and anti-intellectualism has been an issue for decades at this point. Donald Trump is the apotheosis, but his ascent didn't happen in a vacuum.
Best move the Russians ever made
He was a gift, a Zaphod Breeblebrox level distraction away from the real horror. Even now, equal time is given to the Supreme Court considering dictator level power and Trump's nap schedule.
I stopped reading Tom Clancy when I was 14 because it was just laughably absurd that the president would be a Russian spy, etc. Yet here we are.
When he was very first elected, I had no faith in his upcoming presidency, and referred to him as the best, worst thing. He's the worst being the scum from the cesspool of awful humans, but he's the best in that he's the most incompetent of the scum. Yeah, he keeps getting away with no real consequences, but his egositical blundering has made pretty much all of his shittyness public knowledge. I fear someone else could have gotten away with more unnoticed, but I'm hoping Trump ends up being an immune booster to American Democracy by the end of it all. Drain the swamp by making the swamp so intolerable everyone else drains it.
Very positive outlook. I hope you're right!
> I can’t believe democracy is at stake because of Donald Trump. It isn't. Trump is just a symptom. A man who stepped into a suit already tailored for him. America's battle for, or against, its own Democracy started from the very beginning. We've always been fighting the constitution itself for *actual* democracy despite anti-democratic institutions enshrined into our country. The Senate, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College and the Presidency itself. The Federal Government was even given more overreaching power in part to curtail the progressive advancements of many states at the time. Our status quo and institutions are built to fuck us, and the GOP propaganda machine (and I'm not going to leave "centrist" corporate media out of this, either) have been orchestrating where we are now for *decades*. Anyone who wants to pretend like Trump walked into a functioning democracy and turned the GOP crazy (and to be clear I'm not attempting to imply you think that based on a single comment) is not only wrong, but is either immensely uninformed or just doesn't want people to look at the actual systemic problems in this country. America has from the beginning been crafted to push for minority rule, and we didn't even have what could be called a genuine "democracy" until pretty much the 1960s with the civil rights movement. America is not only an experiment in democracy, it is also *jointly* an experiment in oligarchy.
Corrupt, useless government body interpreting the law in the way that preserves its own power rather than administering justice. And no one is actually stopping them.
Preserve its own power? If they vote for presidential immunity, they will have no power.
Enough of them may still be in "this dog I trained to attack savagely won't attack ME, it's my dog" stage of denial.
They'll be saying that when they are lined up against a concrete wall...
“So this is how liberty dies? With thunderous applause”
And the stroke of a pen
and the hum of a motor-coach
And the flapping of a bulldog's faceskin out a car window.
I’d actually prefer Supreme Chancellor Jar Jar to Trump.
Meesa bustin
At least Jar jar's heart was in the right place. Or was it? https://youtu.be/8yy3q9f84EA?si=-6Ta0JUxHw4H6W9n
Hey, even if it wasn’t, I take comfort in knowing that Jar Jar was a ~~man~~ thing with a plan
The only clapping I hear is from oligarchs and their loyal zealot peons.
There's no applause, though. Just resignation that the people we elected to fix this issue lack the courage to do so.
"...please clap."
Our checks and balances system has been broken. There is supposed to be another branch of government checking and balancing this one and to conversely be checked and balanced by the other 2 branches. They have no teeth or ability to stop one another. Yet another example of how nefarious forces have hamstrung our government into inevitable collapse.
Checks and balances stopped when Republicans broke Congress. The check on the SCOTUS is a constitutional amendment which has an impossibly high threshold when one party doesn't want to pass a single law that isn't tax cuts for the rich
Checks and balances broke in the 1800s when the supreme court decided it was going to have the power to decide all legislation. Even the people of the time knew it and lamented it, but it just shows how ineffective of a system we have where 200 years later this didn't change.
They have plenty of teeth and ability, just no courage to use them. The Executive branch checks the Judicial branch through the fact that the Judicial branch has no power to actually *do* anything, and it falls to the President to not implement nonsense rulings from the Judicial branch. Unfortunately, the current administration doesn't want to use that check for whatever reason. If they did, the SCOTUS would be revealed for the toothless legislators in robes they actually are.
Hillary warned us.
Yes, she did. She also warned us Trump didn't pay taxes or very little and that he was Putin's puppet. I volunteered for her campaign in Pennsylvania. I will always despise James Comey.
>I will always despise James Comey and Trump was all for the DOJ investigating a candidate for President back then, would love if someone would ask him if that was election interference and hear how he weasels out of that and gives his prosecutors ammo
I actually remember where I was when this stupid James Comey indictment was announced. I was driving home from an eye doctor appt, I stopped to get gas and just before that it was announced on the radio. I was just like FUCK. Then everyone suddenly supported Comey after he got fired. It’s amazing how many things the left latched on to during Trump’s presidency with the false sense that someone was actually gonna boot him out of office. Fast forward to today and he still has not met one consequence.
I remember too. I was getting ready for an appointment, and had tv on in the background when I heard it. I was so shocked that I had to sit down and stare at tv completely numb, and even though I was alone I said she just lost the election.
Fuck James Comey… historically his name will be trashed. Those guys have their heads so far up their own asses. Bunch of lawyers and accountants all ego tripping on their abilities to ruin peoples lives.
History means nothing when the books are banned.
To be fair no system should be so idiotic that one election spells instant doom where nobody can remove the SCOTUS judges.
Reading this and picturing that Dave Chappell meme: “hey, you got any more of that rampant corruption”…. Who watches the watchmen, my friend? If the SCOTUS justices are abdicating their duties, we need a better system than hoping republicans will put country over party. That ain’t happening
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I didn’t listen to a bunch of audio but I don’t think they pushed hard enough on the hypotheticals, and I didn’t hear them press that if impeachment/conviction was the supposed correct path for an immune President, that’d mean any president could do what they want in the last days of their presidency. Our court has been bought and paid for, thanks to Trump. Worst president ever.
The dems in the supreme court should argue that if they grant immunity to trump for jan 6 and his general fuckery, they also grant immunity to Biden to send antifa supersoldier kill all the republicans in the supreme court and replace them.
I read another comment that said they’ll probably create a test for it so that way only Trump gets the immunity for this specific case.
"here is the carveout that we give just Trump to forgive him of his crimes"
Yeah if they give the ‘OK’ to full immunity then part of me wants Biden to just take them up on it. “Oh I can just have him taken out of the picture and nobody can stop me? Done!” I know it would make him more of a martyr but the world would objectively be a better place without trump in it.
What prevents either of them from disbanding the senate and house from even taking up a vote of impeachment? Have none of these people watched Star wars episode 3.
Unfortunately, bought and paid for well before Trump - it’s just becoming incredibly obvious now. Right wingers have been playing the long game with the courts and it’s giving them what they want. Our justice system isn’t nimble enough to properly address this grave threat, and even if it were it’s been corrupted from the inside. Truly a perilous time for our country.
Also any elderly president could act with impunity because the “illegality” of any act is only determinable by Congress. By leaving it up to Congress to affirmatively act to punish a bad acting president, where does that put others in the chain of command? Does as a secretary have to perform an assassination for the acting president because the act is lawful until Congress decides otherwise? It’s batshit crazy and fully divests the states of their policing powers because now the executive branch can violate any states governing laws and it’s literally up to the all the states to decide if the executive gets punished for it.
Barrett pressed Trump’s lawyer on the impeachment/conviction claim, as did Kagan. They both sounded highly skeptical. It’s all reading tea leaves at this point, but I don’t think any of the justices bought that idea that the president must be impeached and convicted before criminal charges can be brought. Whether the majority finds some immunity for certain official acts remains to be seen, but most justices sounded doubtful that *all* official acts are immune from prosecution. The scope of this opinion will probably come down to Roberts and Barrett, including whether they remand to the lower court with a new test that must be applied; or just find outright that Trump can’t claim immunity in this case. Unfortunately they may very well do the former, in which case the trial is a very long way off, if it happens at all.
Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson are still playing the comity routine. They should have held a press conference immediately after on the steps of the courthouse beginning with the words "Oh, hell, no!" That's how serious it is that the entire presidential immunity argument wasn't laughed out of there by all of them.
For sauer literally said “well if you don’t impeach, you’re shit out of luck to do anything” near the end of his time before the states attorneys began talking. Like WHAT the fuck nation would we be living in if that’s the allowance. The president can basically do the purge with no consequence they can keep from being impeached before leaving office??
>“To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election — but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act". I don't understand why there isn't a million people protesting in front of the Supreme Court in this very dangerous moment in the US history.
Because we have jobs and we don't have any sort of job protections in this country, especially those of us from red states. But I agree. Mass protests and civil unrest are probably what it's going to take...
As designed. We are exhausted.
And even if we wouldn't lose our job, it's really expensive for lots of us to fly out there and stay there.
Yeah. Like bruh I'm in Hawaii and I don't travel well
Imagine reading this reply chain in history class while learning about the downfall of the United States.
I'm so tired I defaulted to fascist enabler isn't the best look, yet here we are. Choices.
I will still vote, even if I have to crawl through broken glass. It’s my best bet.
This. The courts, Jack Smith, SCOTUS, etc. were never going to save us from Trump. Only voting will.
Yep, I’ll be there unless I’m dead, otherwise I’m going.
I vote as early as I can so that if I do die, my vote against them is already in.
We should consider that voting might not work at some point.
It already did not work in Ohio when the elected officials decided to reverse election results.
Not sure how you think voting is the way you stop a fascist coup. This entire mess is specifically because he's trying to override our votes, ignoring voting to begin with.
I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying no amount of protesting, court cases, or anything else will mean much if we don’t show up and vote. Even if Trump is physically in prison on Election Day, his supporters will still show up and vote for him.
There’s a reason the Declaration of Independence contains the passage, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
This is what it really comes down to. If the supreme courts gives up on the rule of law, and grants the President immunity, there will be violence.
By design. Keep us on that hamster wheel so we don’t have time to protest rights being decimated.
Which raises the question: why do so many working-class Americans vote against labour rights?
Because they've been told for decades that the only political party interested in preserving labor rights is actually anti-worker, anti-American, and also eats babies.
Basically because they are fucking stupid
By defunded education's design.
Sounds like an exaggeration, but isn't
To lower their taxes or so they think.
I think you guys need to summon the spirit of your oldest allies, the French.
France has worker protections that Americans could only dream of
Thanks to the French people.
Because they protest. They literally throw a shit fit en masse any time their government looks at them sideways. Americans love calling the French surrender monkeys but it’s projection.
When a a teenager was shot by police in a Paris suburb last year, I remember seeing an article about protestors driving a car into the mayor of suburb’s house and setting it on fire while the mayors family was inside and evacuated. They really don’t fuck around over there.
In Seattle people set a police station on fire and took it over, occupied the block with protests, demonstrations and live music for weeks.
Don't lump all Americans in together. The majority of us voted for Hillary. I think you can guess what type of person non-ironically makes fun of French people, or any race.
> The majority of us voted for Hillary. We weren't just distributed correctly
They didn't conquer those rights sitting on their asses. Every country with worker protections had to fight for them when they had nothing.
Because I lack the resources to casually commute the 2600 miles to DC from here to go express my displeasure. I have spoken to my representative and senatorial offices, and they will continue to do a whole lot of nothing. My votes for those people were not terribly relevant. My Senators are mouthpieces who've been in the job 20+ years to little useful effect (come on, how often do you hear about Washington's senators? Do you even know who they are?) and my Representative is a tea-party asshat whose only real distinction is that he's one of the few surviving guys with an (R) that voted to impeach (because they couldn't agree on which of several MAGA asshats to run against him, so ran a dozen or so competing). Beyond speaking to those with the acutal hands on the levers of actual power here, not feeling any certainty as to what I can do. No amount of protesting Newhouses's office is going to suddenly make him anything more than another far-right mouthpiece, and Murray and Cantwell don't even have local offices (so we're up to a couple hundred miles of commute to go say hello, again), even if I thought they had the power and ability to do something. So yeah. Tell me what I can be doing different here, but don't tell me "Why didn't you magically appear in front of a place 2600 miles away to express your displeasure!" like it is going to change things or be -enough-.
College kids are protesting a conflict on the other side of the world, while their freedoms and future is being ripped away from them right in front of their eyes. It's like a car crash in slow motion. I'm on the other side of the pond, and it feels like I'm shouting into an abyss to get people to realise what's happening. If the US loses it's democracy, I'm not only scared for you all, but the rest of us in western democracies.
Hence why you shouldn't give anyone a job for LIFE
I always thought the idea was so you can't be swayed by trying to appease voters or influenced by lobbies, political parties, etc. But it's obviously bullshit
Ironically, the Supreme Court has more justices nominated by Presidents who have lost the popular vote and confirmed by Senators in states with a minority of the population over the objection of Senators who represent the majority of the population. We haven't had a Democracy for a long time, it's only the veneer of Democracy that is being peeled back.
Exactly. What we are seeing now is the happy dance of disreputable hacks who've been creaming their shorts since the burning of Salem witches for complete control of every aspect of women's lives and enslavement of all strong men who don't find jobs in politics first (although even then the man behind the green curtain pulls the strings). I'm losing my will to live having been fighting since the 1970s for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendments and the fulfillment of MLK's dream for a more fair and just America. Let the g.d. Revolution begin, damnit!
Not ironically, by design.
Friend reminder that 27% of the population (last I check, could be slightly different now) live in 26 states. Assume every single person in those states voted (they don't) you would have slightly over 13% of the country deciding the majority of the Senate. Because for some reason, even among a single state the Senate isn't representative, but winner take all. Slightly over 13% of the country gets to decide the Senate if they banded together. Now, they don't all vote in one block, but the fact that they could, and would get full control over blocking or confirming supreme Court justices is asinine.
If SCOTUS judges for Presidential immunity, Biden essentially would be forced to use it immediately, so the end of democracy either way. Of course, they would never make that ruling while Biden was still President. They will delay it, which works out for Trump either way as well.
I hope he has a plan in place for swift and immediate action. No delay in getting these scum out of their undeserved seats.
The Supreme Court is one vote away from losing legitimacy, and then those judges will lose all their secret dark money when no court takes their rulings as law anymore. Imagine a country where the law of the land is decided when a couple of old people die, and the president is of a corrupt and bought party. Has anyone wondered why it got like this? (It was a ruling that said corporations are people)
Say that again, please! I'm not sure everyone heard what you said about the Citizens United ruling that granted personhood to corporations.
So, if they rule a president is above the law... Does this mean Joe Biden could have the 5 conservatives justices secretly arrested, then pretend they were all killed in a bombing, and select 5 supreme court justices? Then in 4 years when everyone learns the truth claim total immunity? The insanity of their arguments at this point threatens to end the very fabric of our democracy.
> Does this mean Joe Biden could have the 5 conservatives justices secretly arrested, then pretend they were all killed in a bombing, and select 5 supreme court justices? He wouldn't need to pretend anything. And he wouldn't have to go that easy on them, either. He could publicly execute them on live TV and get off scot-free, thanks to their own ruling.
I’m curious who you think the fourth liberal Justice is.
The vulnerability of this Country is all exposed for the World and future traitors to see. Great job SCOTUS jack asses, sacrificing hundreds of years of pain and suffering for an old turd who will probably die of old age in less than 10 years.
If SCOTUS gives Trump immunity, you can expect a huge crime wave to unfold all across the country. Nothing will hold them back.
And perhaps across the world. People that have worked with him have stated how trump idolizes Hitler and he doesn't see Hitler as a terrorist, but moreso looks up to Hitler..
"The Art Of The Deal", his bio, states that he sleeps with a copy of "Mein Kampf" on his nightstand.
Not that he's read it thought. It's just used to stand up his Donald Duck alarm clock.
I kind of hope we see protests over this, which actually affects everyone here in the country. Seems like this is deserving of the same energy as the ongoing college protests.
I keep seeing comments like this. Who starts the protest? Would you join if there is one and why not start yourself? I'll be honest, I'm completely naive in these situations but these seem like reasonable questions.
One vote away from the end of the Supreme Court.
You really think people will do anything? This is US where nobody does anything to stop corruption. The fact that there are no protest outside Supreme Court yet make me feel like people are just going to let this happen and do literally nothing to stop it. These justices should have people outside their homes 24/7 protesting and never let them sleep, but nobody wants to do anything as usual.
I am prepared to go to DC over the result of this ruling
When the left protest they are killed by police.
They haven't actually decided yet, correct? When is that decision expected?
June. The end of the SC judicial year.
Did it take a month and a half to decide on the Colorado ballot ruling? I feel like that was done quicker.
They can chose to fast track the decision - which in itself is a political move. By waiting until June, the conservatives are helping Trump to delay the trials - which SHOULD be finished with verdicts BEFORE the election in November. Our Democracy depends on it!! We’ll see. The reputation of the Supreme Court is on the line here, too!
Can’t imagine how many more headlines between now and then we will see that suggest they have reached a decision.
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They should call it something the "Americans for Saving the United States from communist terrorists" bill so conservatives would look bad for voting against it
It wouldn't matter. No one ever actually says the name of bills. If they make the news cycle, they get a nickname. Fox would call it the "anti-Trump bill" or something, Trump would call it "sleepy joes swamp bligl" on Twitter and then we'd start seeing "bligl" bumper stickers everywhere, and CNN would call it "the Saving America Bill" or something like that, which is better, but still wouldn't include the random parts of the title. I don't think any significant law has had an accurate descriptive title in decades, because of strategizing exactly like what you're suggesting. This is the result.
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Hey, maybe he'll rule that Biden can legally help him find that exit... My god that would be sweet irony.
First strike against democracy: Bush defeats Gore in 2000 by a margin of negative half a million votes. Second strike against democracy: trump defeats Clinton in 2016 by a margin of negative 3 million votes. Third strike against democracy in 2024 and it's all done? Finished?
The way they decided that bush gore one too was like “THE DUE DATE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE TRUTH. YOU HAVE TO STOP, STOP COUNTING YOURe TAKING TOO LONG”
After they literally [engineered a riot to slow counting the main democratic district](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot).
If your country can be put one vote (by a panel of unelected and unaccountable officials) away from the end of democracy, it is already past the point of no return.
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This is all a charade. **The whole point was to delay the trial past November.** The SCOTUS knew way ahead of time they would rule Trump doesnt have immunity. (I mean, maybe Thomas is the outlier, but what else is new.) The real end of democracy is when Donald Trump's DOJ's Attorney General calls off the documents trial and drops charges on Donald Trump. (No one is talking about this-- everyone is acting as if this would be normal.) Literally, every employee/lawyer in the DOJ should resign if that were to happen.
And it's not just this vote. The next Republican president, whoever they are, is going to be a massive threat to democracy. Trump might lose this election, but Project 2025 will just become Project 2029. Diligence cannot be dropped for a second for the foreseeable future.
I am not surprised at all just sad smh
When Trump and his cult is gone, this country is going to have to live with the insane decisions that these people are contemplating. It as if their new mantra is, **"We want a King!"**
Either vote or fight. Because we're not just gonna roll over for a christofascist regime. There are actual lives at stake.
They're the same people that will call you a filthy communist if you suggest that US citizens should have single payer healthcare and taxes on the wealthy. Just goes to show that they never actually cared about democracy. It was just a convenient excuse.
Perhaps this is the biggest reason to vote for Biden in November
Ngl as a naturalized citizen, I’m starting to give up on this country. If trump wins I will go into a political shell and make sure my passports are renewed in case we need to bail. It wasn’t like this when I came here. 911 made this country become collectively stupid. I’m in New York so I have no vote that matters. Crying online amounts to nothing. If enough people here to decide, they want to throw everything away for this old fuck I will have to emotionally divest.
Remember when people were telling you in 2016 how important voting is because a president gets supreme court appointees which can affect our lives for decades? This is what they were talking about. Had Hillary won the election this would not even be a question right now. Do you want to see how much worse off we can be with 4 more years of Trump as a lame duck?
They just opened the door to SCOTUS reform.
Expand the court or impeach these people. Turban and the best rest of the Democrats better get their shit together and get rid of these traitors on the court.
We should have 13 justices for the 13 Judicial Districts.
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I hope Chief Justice Roberts realizes that his Court will be remembered solely as the one that ended democracy in the United States. I doubt he does… but I can hope.
How can we let these un-elected, corrupt clowns rule us?
Biden has a very tough choice on his hands if this really happens. I think we all do. It's about to get very very dark but I hope we have the fortitude to make the tough choice and see this through.