If you want to follow along on SCOTUSblog.
I’ll copy the short summaries as each one shows up on their website.
Are we going to need another one of these this week?
Here we go!
In Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors, the court holds that a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act to challenge an agency action first comes into being when the plaintiff is injured by final agency action.
OPINION: 6-3 Result: NOT GOOD
The court vacates both decisions on Texas and Florida’s social media laws, in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice v. Paxton, explaining that neither of the lower courts properly considered the nature of the First Amendment challenges.
OPINION: Result:
In Trump v. United States, the court holds that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers.
OPINION: Result:
Jeffro
(I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Bannon doesn’t report to prison until at least 4pm today; otherwise it’ll be too early for champagne!)
Luther M. Siler
My understanding is that they’ve actually announced today will be the last day for decisions. Naturally, I’m going to be locked away from the internet or any news starting in about ten minutes until about noon. Whee!
TBone
Repost from below:
One to watch: Corner Post versus The Federal Reserve. Facepalm…
https://www.lawdork.com/p/forget-the-imperial-presidency-john
Also, Kagan’s “I Dissent!” read from the bench Friday last.
JWR
Hoping for the best, bracing for the worst.
The best being “we screwed up, the lower court ruling stands and the trials may resume at once.”
The worst? Good God, hell if I know. But If anyone can do it, it’s this damn court.
TBone
@JWR: 👍
Eunicecycle
@Luther M. Siler: You’re right; I understand from (real) internet lawyers that there still is the outside chance there won’t be a decision this term. Or they send it back to the Appeals court, although most lawyers think their decision was very well reasoned.
Mousebumples
Did anyone get confirmation that Alito was or was not at the Court last week?
Rooting for karmic injuries/illness…
Mousebumples
@Jeffro: Happy Steve Bannon goes to prison day! 🍻
Almost Retired
@Jeffro: You can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.
Tom Hamill
Those red velvet drapes give me a Twin Peaks vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0YI_eHg3Aw
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Mousebumples:
My hope is that he is in a cell with a very large, very opinionated Democrat. Extra credit if he is muscular.
WaterGirl
@Luther M. Siler: Yes, Robeerts officially announced a day or two ago that this is the last set of opinions for this term.
PBK
@WaterGirl:
Before we get caught up in even more sturm und drang, I want to thank WaterGirl for her steadfast fundraising efforts, especially after these past few days. There will always be the unexpected in political campaigns and life. Let’s keep moving forward and doing the work.
TBone
@TBone: we lost Corner Post. Not good at all.
The administrative state is under siege, and now faces further possible abuse.
Mike in NC
@Jeffro: Bannon might actually enjoy prison provided he can hook up with some Aryan Brotherhood types and hold court during exercise periods.
NotMax
@Mousebumples
Best episode of Truth Or Consequences to date.
:)
WaterGirl
@PBK: Thank you!
Save your pennies, because we have another one coming up fast. But you get a few days off! :-)
Skippy-san
I’m hoping Bannon is mugged in prison. ( Or worse).
Belafon
@Skippy-san: He’s gonna claim that having to take a shower is cruel and unusual punishment.
Jeffro
@Almost Retired: ha! no, not on a weekday, thanks
Mousebumples
FAFO…
WaterGirl
First opinion released, and I have no idea what it’s about or what it means.
Mousebumples
JWR
From SCOTUSblog:
Yep. Call them the Destructors.
Jackie
@Mike in NC: I’m hoping he’s kept in solitary confinement “for his own safety.”
Which, coincidentally, would keep him from his prison mate adorers.
Anonymous At Work
@TBone: Corner Post and Loper-Bright mean that ANY agency rule made under APA since 1949 or grandfathered in, is subject to multiple challenges, no matter how long settled.
My new motto is, “According to SCOTUS, earning a JD granted me omniscience.” As if having to deal with my employer’s law firm of Dunning & Krueger wasn’t enough…
hrprogressive
@JWR:
That’s literally their entire point. They do not want a functional federal government, except for a mighty military to bomb everyone they don’t like into oblivion.
Anonymous At Work
@JWR: Democrats must win the trifecta this election, eliminate the filibuster and pass the “Elizabeth Warren Omnibus Bill Designed to Make Scalito/Thomas/Gorsuch Prolapse.”
Most of the fixes are statutory to APA. Just will take a battering ram to do so.
Eolirin
Unless we by some miracle hold the Senate in addition to winning the house and presidency, and our Democratic senators are willing to court pack and pass explicit legislation undoing this stuff, it’s going to take decades to undo the damage to the executive branch.
This stuff is going to literally kill people.
lowtechcyclist
@hrprogressive:
In which case we might as well dissolve the Union, and they can be the Supreme Court of the Red State Republic.
RaflW
In regards to Corner Post and this new can opener move to further gut the regulatory state, this was my comment moments ago on Bsky:
It’s not unimaginable that US youth & young people will get incredibly radicalized as the combo of a massive wealth divide and a useless regulatory state makes the enviro & climate crisis *much* more existentially bad. People who feel gov’t is utterly irresponsive to needs will act outside of traditional channels and with means other than courts and legislatures. Add in the end of Roe, gutting of MLK-era civil rights, and a likely retrenchment on gay and lesbian rights (trans already nearly fully attacked) and the right is brewing a cocktail of explosive frustration
—
When somewhat cooler heads prevailed on the right, and when they had a smidge less blunt judicial power, I think there was still an understanding that one function of government is to keep the citizenry placated. I feel like the right is banking 100% on the power of a police state to maintain order. And that might work.
But it might not. This country has 400,000,000 guns. They’re not all in right wing hands, and even some that are can be bought and sold on a black market (or an open market!) that will likely thrive.
This country has never really gone hard-right before. I don’t think our ~250 year history suggests we’ll passively accept jack-booted power. But maybe I’m too naive, of course lots of people will just keep their heads down and work to survive as their main resistance.
Mousebumples
@Eolirin: Unfortunately for the MAGA 6 on the Court, that’s a feature not a bug.
Mousebumples
Next is NetChoice, apparently from Kagan.
hrprogressive
@lowtechcyclist:
Again, that’s what the Fascist GOP / Fascist Voters want.
I don’t, but we need to make that clear to elected Democrats. At least, assuming the 2024 election goes well.
davidjoseph1
the federal circuit is going to get *slammed* with APA regulatory challenges. which of course was by design.
Kavanaugh’s concurrence is the worst writing.
Baud
Fifth Circuit slapped down again.
Mousebumples
Sounds like the Fifth Circuit was called out for being bad at law the opinion. Hah.
Baud
Looks like algorithms are protected.
TBone
@Anonymous At Work: I am well aware of that and I’m very, very frustrated about *waves hand* all of this.
I might just join the cicadas and scream for the next six weeks.
Thank you for sharing your motto!
Eolirin
I don’t think people are going to like the return to the pre-FDA pre-EPA pre-NLRB industrial revolution era. And a lot of people are going to die because of it.
Hell, as much as certain business interests are pushing for this stuff, I don’t think the broader business community is going to like the massive instability this causes. No one’s going to be able to know what rules they need to follow because people are going to be able to sue constantly to get them changed, and in different directions, and it’ll be down to how the courts decide to rewrite the rules, which will bypass the normal agency processes that are heavily structured and give businesses adequate time to prepare.
This stuff runs the risk of destabilizing the entire country.
Skippy-san
@RaflW: Something has to be done. But I fear that even if there are large demonstrations, Trump will throw out posse comitatus, and I am not confident the military will refuse an immoral and illegal order. They will shoot demonstrators and be cheered on by Fox News.
Mousebumples
zhena gogolia
I’m sorry, but what is APA?
Mousebumples
A response says no immunity, but I haven’t looked yet /IANAL.lowtechcyclist
@hrprogressive:
They want to live in a bunch of economic backwater shithole states, with no more support from blue America? OK with me.
hrprogressive
@Eolirin:
This is all by design. The right thinks they can win such a destablization, because again, they have had “revolutionary” fever dreams for decades.
@RaflW:
That’s the thing. A lot of us, like me, hope it doesn’t come to anything like this. But people on the center/left need to start grappling with the possibility, and prepare appropriately, now.
We should not be prepared to cede such a situation in advance.
TBone
Me, to hubby yesterday:
hrprogressive
@lowtechcyclist:
Unless/Until the “Blue States”/the Feds stop supporting the Welfare Red States in this manner, it’s moot.
Mousebumples
Fuck.
TBone
As expected, partial immunity, kicked back to lower court 😡
Eolirin
@hrprogressive: There’s no winning such a destabilization! Everyone loses.
TBone
Me and the cicadas: screaming for the rest of the summer!
Mousebumples
lowtechcyclist
@hrprogressive:
The hypothetical we were talking about was the dissolution of the Republic, remember?
Shalimar
It’s not really a good decision, but still, my current favorite words are “Alito, with Thomas and Gorsuch, dissents.”
JWR
Looks bad, so far.
So what is it?!!1
Philbert
@TBone: Kicked to lower court to delay to see who wins the election. arrgghh
Baud
A president can weaponize DOJ.
TBone
I can feel the ankle shackles closing around my feet, “hobbling” is the word of the day.
Mousebumples
TBone
👑nothing 🎶😡
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5j8lz4oD4Q
Shalimar
@JWR: That was the expected decision. And trial and circuit courts were both pretty clear these were unoffical acts. But send it back down to say so again.
TaMara
JFC
If we take this election in NOV and do NOT address this corrupted judiciary, we can kiss our Democracy goodbye, even if we manage to mute the MAGAs.
lowtechcyclist
@JWR:
And here I thought former Presidents had no Constitutional powers at all, and all their acts were unofficial.
hrprogressive
Okay, Biden. Time to “Officially” do Whatever The Fuck You Want.
Officially Expand the Court.
Officially Strike All Student Debt.
Officially Reinstate Roe.
Fuck Them. Do everything.
jimmiraybob
@Skippy-san: “I’m hoping Bannon is mugged in prison. ( Or worse).”
In the Trump/MAGA Bizarro World this would only give him cred.
Almost Retired
@Baud: Yup, weaponizing the DOJ is an “official act” if done right. Woe be to whatever invertebrate Trump would appoint as Attorney General.
J. Arthur Crank
@zhena gogolia: Administrative Procedure Act
Leto
And with that time to walk the dog, and then spend the day in the yard. I need the break.
JWR
@Mousebumples: That’s what it took them all this time to tell us? Buncha delay the case a-holes?
Mousebumples
Trump immunity dissent –
UncleEbeneezer
Glass half-full:
I’m actually fairly pleased with this because Jack Smith made it pretty damn clear in his indictments that Trump’s crimes were not official acts. Sure there will be more delay, but that was expected.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Administrative Procedures Act?
TBone
January 6: official or unofficial?
ETA I see Uncle Ebeneezer got there first.
Lower court unlikely to reverse itself.
BUT JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.
Mousebumples
@JWR: 😑
This is my surprised face. 🤬
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: Indictment notes repeatedly that most of the actions were not part of any Presidential duty.
jimmiraybob
@lowtechcyclist:
“In which case we might as well dissolve the Union, and they can be the Supreme Court of the Red State Republic.”
How long do you think that it would take for the “Red State Republic” to declare war on Blue States?
Eolirin
@jimmiraybob: They would lose. Very badly. We have all the people and all the money and most of the industry.
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: it’s the delay…
Shalimar
@hrprogressive: I think we had a preview during Covid of what we will see going forward. Republicans will neuter the federal government, including taxes, just like Trump and especially Kushner did in the first half of 2020. California, Oregon, & Washington banded together for purchases, as did a group of Northeastern states. We will see more and more of the regional compacts before we see the US begin to break up.
Mousebumples
@zhena gogolia: relevant explanation (IANAL)
TBone
Aaaand there it is…
The Fuckening!!!
Eolirin
@Mousebumples: Yeah they did it so that they could get maximum value out of Chevron going away. They can go after literally everything now. And you know they’ve got specific cases all queued up ready to go so they can get rid of the rules they don’t like. This is coordinated.
TBone
Presidents are now Kings. Officially.
Careful what you wish…
🎶😡👑
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5j8lz4oD4Q
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: we did it before, regionally. The model is Jim Crow.
(And it was national to some degree– just in the North the Black vote wasn’t decisive, so less effort to suppress that.)
So fighting Jim Crow is the model to examine too. Nonviolent approaches can work but always expect violence to be used against them (that is part of the strategy in fact).
Dagaetch
from scotusblog:
GFY Clarence.
Baud
@Dagaetch:
Helping out Cannon. How neighborly of him.
eclare
@jimmiraybob:
I am sick of people thinking they can just throw away people in Red states, as a Democrat in Memphis (blue) in TN. Cut it out. It is not a good look.
Mousebumples
@Eolirin: probably need to expand the courts to handle all the new cases.
Let’s win this win Biden and keep the Senate.
I need to be done with thinking about this for now. But I’m pissed off and ready to fight for Biden and Dems up and down the ballot.
Baud
@eclare:
Haven’t you followed the Internet recently? We’re not big on good looks.
zhena gogolia
@J. Arthur Crank: thanks.
Timill
“Seeing a threat to the rule of law in these United States, I have today officially ordered Seal Team 6 to execute the Republican-appointed Justices.”
MazeDancer
Fire up the Band, Joe. Seal Team 6 every “traitor”. Officially.
mvr
@UncleEbeneezer:
The dissenters seem to think it amounts to nearly complete immunity in practical terms for acts done in office. My guess is they know what they’re talking about.
jimmiraybob
@hrprogressive:
“Unless/Until the “Blue States”/the Feds stop supporting the Welfare Red States in this manner, it’s moot.”
This is old think. In the new Red State Republic they will own the Old America Capitol and architecture of the Old National Government. That is the point of what they are doing. They already own two out of three of the classical branches of government.
Almost Retired
@eclare: Amen! It can’t be said enough that much of the divide is an urban rural split. Redding, California and Memphis, TN demonstrate the limitations of the red state/blue state framing.
Belafon
@JWR: So the lower court decides that an insurrection is not a core official act. A lower court also decides that classified documents belong to the office, and cannot be owned by the person.
Percysowner
@MazeDancer:
And start with the corruptly appointed “justices”
jimmiraybob
@eclare:
I am very familiar with living in a red state with blue enclaves. My senators are Hawley and the other MAGA creep.
During the civil war 1.0, Missouri’s people ware divided and the Confederates tried mightily to take the Capitol, Jeff City. Because that was the center of power.
Sean
@hrprogressive:
Jesus Christ, how does one “prepare” for civil war and a breakdown of all civil society? There is no preparation for that. I’m not going to arm up an prepare to slaughter my MAGA family members/neighbors. I honestly don’t know what I’d do, other than be a refugee fleeing violence like the vast majority of people would be. I can’t even contemplate it. Not to mention without a military fracture wherein at least some part of the existing military broke off to lead the opposing side and organize command/weaponry, the “center/left” isn’t going to get very far against the full cadre of weapons of mass destruction of the US armed forces. Truly, the scope of it all is beyond me and, I suspect, beyond most average people.
PaulWartenberg
Time to have Biden order Seal Team Six to arrest every Republican working for Putin and charge them as terrorists committed espionage.
jimmiraybob
@Eolirin:
“They would lose. Very badly.”
Not if they “own” three branches of federal government. The one thing that the traitorous Confederates never managed to do is take DC.
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
Why would there be a civil war if they control everything?
Anonymous At Work
@zhena gogolia: Administrative Procedures Act, a law setting out how regulatory agencies issue rules. Agencies take Congressional statutes, which can be as vague as “Improve drug safety,” into a set of rules about testing, evaluation standards, review, and approval of “safe” drugs. A big part of it is that the agencies show their work, disclose the evidence they used, issue a draft rule, take ANY and ALL comments (“Notice and Comment”), review the comments, revise the rule based on comments with explanations for why they did or did not use particular comments, and then publish the final rule. Turnaround time is in years, typically.
Chevron deference was “those agencies are staffed by experts, so judges defer to the experts.” Loper-Bright is “Judges are the real experts in all things.”
APA had a Statute of Limitations (time limit) on challenging final rules of six years AFTER the final rule is published. Corner Post case says that the time limit to challenge is six years EACH TIME the rule is used.
hueyplong
Too irritated to read the other posts, so apologize if this is extra repetitive, but if they were going to do this, Jack Smith moved for them to do it back in December. Instead, the Court denied that motion, sat on a decision for additional months after the case finally made it up to them, and then, on the last fucking day, ruled in a way designed to make the lower court redo its prior findings so that the case will have to meander back up. The illegitimacy of this Supreme Court is blatant and total.
And that kind of hurts for a member of some bars to say.
Citizen Alan
@eclare: As A former red stater, I am sorry that you feel trapped in an area where you are outnumbered by evil monsters who want to kill us all. That does not change the fact that you are outnumbered by evil monsters who want to kill us all. We really need to start thinking about some kind of refugee program to help people like you escape to blue states before your neighbors herd you into concentration camps and murder you.
JWR
@Belafon: So they can be appealed again, and we should expect SCOTUS to let the lower courts decision stand?
eclare
@Almost Retired:
Absolutely.
RaflW
@Eolirin: Eggg-zactly.
We’ve had a basically stable regulatory (and legal) system in the US for such a long time that even the conservatives, but especially the business interests, have forgotten that a wild west mentality helps some but hurts a hell of a lot of others.
Here’s where I think Repubs may badly miscalculate: Take the East Palestine, OH derailment and toxic chemical plume. Who got bandied about at as a primary villain in that? Government. Pete Buttigieg.
In a laissez-fair regime Democrats, community activists, enviros all get to go after the private rail company and the toxic chemical shipper head-on. They want no regulations? Tort the mother fuckers at every possible angle while attacking them ruthlessly (rhetorically) in the streets and on social media.
Matt McIrvin
@Sean: I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m no good at violence, never have been– that’s not my specialty. My daughter is moving out this fall. If everything goes to hell, I plan to advise her to flee the country and personally mentally prepare for the moment when they bust down the door so I can spit on my killers with my dying breath.
And that’s about it.
wenchacha
I think I feel worst for Justice Jackson. She knows the law; her excellence brought her to sit on the highest court in the land, which is a great honor, historically. How awful it must be to attain such a goal, then watch as the court itself crumble its own foundation.
Fuck the mendacious six.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
I was just discussing what hrprogressive says “the Fascist GOP / Fascist Voters want” and what the consequences would be of their getting their desires. Just pointing out that it would suck for them – not urging that such a division should happen.
TBone
@hueyplong: hugs
Sean
@Baud:
Right. I feel like I’m told to “prepare for civil war” with unusual frequency, like that’s just a normal thing to do. Struggle and conflict can exist without a civil war as the only outcome, no matter how probably it may or may not be.
TBone
I’m outside disturbing the neighbors at full blast! 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jMkdvY2Z2Xk
This is gonna be the loudest Fourth of July in my town’s history 😆
cain
@Shalimar: we will also see a lot of mass migration to those states because those states will be stable.
ewrunning
Awful. So POTUS immune for anything he says to Atty general. So Biden should order Garland to detain Trump and ship him to Guantanamo.
Mr. Bemused Senior
The corruption of the federal judiciary including the Supreme Court is a disaster for the United States.
This was a deliberate strategy and it has reached a dangerous point. Joe Biden isn’t kidding when he describes the likely consequences of the 2024 election.
Baud
@Sean:
Everything we say is hyperbolic. (See what I did there.) I think it hurts our messaging.
Shalimar
@TBone: Presidents are kings but the Supreme Court has taken all the power.
jimmiraybob
@Baud: “Why would there be a civil war if they control everything?”
I would refer you to history.
If, and I’m not saying that it is highly probable … yet …if they control all three branches of Federal government as well as a majority of Red states and they keep flushing natural/civil rights and political solutions down the drain for the non-MAGA, what options would be left?
Trump has been talking about sending Federal Troops into blue enclaves to restore “order” for forever. Red states have been sending their National Guard to aid fellow red states.
Soprano2
I’m already seeing stories that say “Trump has immunity for official acts” rather than “The person in the office of the presidency” has immunity for official acts. It’s maddening to me that they personalize it in this way, as if the ruling was only for TCFG.
Sean
@Matt McIrvin:
From reading your comments in the past, I think we’re very similar thinkers. I don’t know what I would do. Survival instinct is a hell of a thing. Thankfully I don’t have kids. I’m sorry you’ve had to spend any time at all contemplating it for yours.
RaflW
@Skippy-san: Yup. But as awful as it would be, we have to go the next several steps. This country (mostly) recoiled at J6. Again I may be naive, but I think most Americans would be horrified if a Trumpy government started Kent-stating civil protests.
IDK. I am just barely old enough to have a few vague memories of the level of political violence that used to happen in this country (assassinations, bombings, etc – like, not McVeigh Oklahoma, but small scale political bombings).
Yes some of that can play into ‘law and order’ hands, but a destabilized country is not one where the press can easily play a ‘both sides are the same’ game and get away with it. The contrasts will be heigtened.
I am not optimistic that some soft revolution will easily return us to normal. Normal is toast in the USA. It’s looking a bit like normal may be toast in France for a while. The UK is maybe learning a gentler lesson after decades of Tory malfeasance, but they’re not nearly as violent a society as the US is.
I’m mystified and more than a little freaked out about what shoals this ship of state is steaming towards. But I find I can’t just not think about outcomes and the steps in between.
Josie
Did anyone understand the point about Trump’s advising Pence to stop the electoral vote count being interference with the executive branch (a separation of powers issue)? I did not understand what that was about.
ETA: Also what is the difference between “absolute immunity” and “a presumption of immunity”?
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
Most likely, submission, as it is in most autocracies. At most, large scale protests and strikes, including some violent ones. See Iran protests for example. They would be put down, or at least the attempt would be made.
wenchacha
My spouse and I have joked about leaving for Japan if the worst happens in November. We now have family who spend time in Japan, so the idea rambles around, along with the fact that abandoned houses are cheap and available.
So yeah, language barrier, different food, different culture and customs. And weed isn’t legal, dammit! 😉
But, bottom line, what happens to our allies if CFDJT grabs POTUS power again? Who is safe, where is safe? I don’t want to be hyperbolic, but bad things could happen in lots of places around the globe, dammit.
TBone
@Shalimar: “Core Constitutional Duties” are whatever the Supremacists Court says they are, so yeah.
Eolirin
@RaflW: Other presumably unintended consequences; suits can also be brought from the left, and the courts aren’t so monolithically controlled that they can’t be won in the right district, so the Supreme Court will be having to hear a lot of those too. People can sue for harm owing to the agency rules not being restrictive enough. And without Chevron, a court could decide to make that rule more restrictive rather than less. Climate litigation is an area where there’s already been some attempts in that direction.
I’m sure they’ll come up with some way to swat down all of those types of cases eventually, but still.
Matt McIrvin
@wenchacha: I enjoyed visiting Japan but it is a de facto one party state ruled by a right-wing party–in some ways less of a healthy multiparty democracy than we’ve had. Is the political attraction mostly that the politics aren’t ours?
Belafon
Democrats in the House need to challenge Republicans on the investigations into Biden in light of the new Supreme Court ruling.
Harrison Wesley
Hey, there’s also plenty of legalmalizeraling (if I might use a Dubyism) at the state level, too. I have no legal expertise and very little knowledge, but it appears to me that Mr. Three-Way Moms for Liberty Floriduh Man is gonna skate.
https://www.bradenton.com/news/politics-government/article289656672.html
gene108
@Mousebumples:
Not surprising they made it harder to prosecute Trump for trying to overthrow the government. The Sinister Six are partisan hacks and billionaires bitches.
Old School
Does this mean presidents can never be impeached again? They can not be guilty of high crimes?
Martin
They already are. They’re just not yet at the burning-your-shit-down level of despondency. They’re currently in the we-owe-corporate-america-nothing level of productivity theft. BLM showed that they’re getting there, though.
It is slowly working it’s way into the culture.
Omnes Omnibus
This was bad. I had predicted some immunity for some kinds of official acts and a remand to the district court for further fact finding. So, yeah. This so much broader than I had imagined. This comes far too close to absolute immunity for anything in its practical effect than I thought possible.
opiejeanne
Never mind
I tend to think that everything east of the I-5 is red, up and down the coast. That’s not to say that everything west of the I-5 is blue, though.
Baud
@opiejeanne:
I think he meant Redding is red and Memphis is blue, which goes against their respective states.
cain
@Eolirin:
If I understand Chevron decision correctly, the experts have moved from the agency to the SCOTUS making them essentially the gatekeepers. Given that they are partisan, I reckon that they will decide for conservative challenges not liberal liberal ones.
Ultimately even the conservatives are going to start to freak out.
We have big problems this year and the next. The Dems are going to finally know that we are no longer operating remote normally and hopefully they will no longer be reluctant to change rules.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: I know there’s nothing we can do right this minute. However: what are the next steps? and who can/needs to take them? (I actually think the prosecution can go forward, but it’s still a horrifyingly bad decision; they’ve given up on TCFG, but they’re setting the stage for the next R president.)
CaseyL
A lawless SCOTUS enabling a lawless POTUS. Jolly.
Eolirin
@Old School: Impeachment is a political, and not legal remedy, I think. I don’t think it’s affected by this ruling. I would think they couldn’t then be criminally tried for the actions that lead to Impeachment though, which seems insane.
opiejeanne
@Baud: The penny dropped right after I posted that. Redding was not blue last time I checked.
TBone
“If we wanna save our home…” 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k03dsRUVbcQ
Omnes Omnibus
@narya: Win in November. Expand the Court. Let the expanded Court revisit some of these decisions.
ETA: The prosecutions can still go forward on a number of charges. Courts just need to decide if the acts are official or not. And they need to remember that this Court will has set itself as the ultimate arbiter.
FDRLincoln
If worse comes to worst, I really don’t know what to do.
I’m 56 years old, with relatively perilous finances. My wife is 54, has a debilitating neurological disease. My young adult son is autistic, non-verbal, and will require round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. I live in a blue city in a deep red state.
What are we supposed to do? We don’t have the financial resources to flee to a blue state, and I am responsible for the care and well-being of a disabled child and a wife who may be fully disabled within the next few years.
How do we manage life under a fascist regime?
I don’t want to be a Good German and stand idly by if things go fully-fascist. But how does one manage responsibilities as a citizen who loves democracy and tries to be a decent person with the obligation to protect vulnerable family members?
We have to win in 2024, and I am actually optimistic that we will. But basically the non-fascists have to win every national election for the foreseeable future…and I don’t see how the Republic sustains itself under those conditions.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: 👍😭
gene108
@Baud:
Yup.
Read the first part of the opinion. The allegations Trump’s discussions with the acting AG about overturning the election are no longer charges the DOJ can pursue.
Second, after the district issues its ruling, Trump can then sue again to contest the decision.
This case is never going to trial.
Eolirin
@cain: They can’t hear every case, is the thing. There’s gonna be too many of them. And yes, they’ll be more likely to take up the ones that side with more liberal outcomes. But the volume here can be made quite massive. Especially since the same rule can be challenged over and over again as new instances of “harm” are created.
Martin
Is ordering the FBI to arrest 3 members of the Supreme Court and hold them in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely an official act? Asking for a friend.
RaflW
@Dagaetch: Clarence Thomas coming within a hair’s breath of saying what far too many Republicans believe: No Democratic president is legitimate.
Mr. Million Dollar Vacations is saying plainly that he does not see a US Attorney General appointed by a duly elected president as having ‘the authority of the American people’. Indeed, Dagaetch, GFY is right.
Clarence, fuck you for saying that the line from elected president to AG to Jack Smith is illegitimate. This is the most facile of “I don’t like the outcome so I’ll question the means” bullshit that perfectly illustrates Thomas’ utter unsuitability for the highest court.
Matt McIrvin
@Sean: I live in one of the bluest blue state corners of the US, and I’m a straight white guy, so the reality is that I’m probably safer from a right-wing federal autocracy than 95% of Americans. But that’s in part predicated on my leaving all my friends and family to the wolves, and to hell with that. Except for the ones who are on the side of the wolves, they’re on their own. I plan to use my relative safety to be a loudmouth, and see where that goes.
I’ve heard a bunch of people say they’re just going to give up on caring as a protective measure, and I think that’s making a lot of unwarranted assumptions. You may not care about politics but politics cares about you, as the saying goes.
But I’m never going to be the guy with the gun.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: 💙
jimmiraybob
@Baud: And, I want to be clear, I am not saying that there will be civil war and I’m not advocating for civil war, but a good chunk of MAGA supporters are now doing just that.
The “race riots leading to a new American civil war” idea used to be a fringe idea.
The first time I heard a state Republican raise the specter while running for office, I believe in Nevada, was during Obama’s first term.
Now, it’s almost a mainstream talking point, especially at MAGA rallies. I recommend watching more Jardon klepper interviews at MAGA/Trump rallies. Donie O’Sullivan did inteviews for CNN and regular looking moms and pops were calling for civil war if Trump couldn’t save America.
It is “out there.” Would they actually support the killing of non-MAGA kin? Who knows. Again, look to history and specifically our own civil war 1.0.
prostratedragon
@Omnes Omnibus: Now you’re scaring me.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
OK, thanks.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus: but will the Dems and some Republicans do it though ? They have been clinging to rules and agreements for 250 years.
JWR
From SCOTUSblog, and no, I’m not grokking this:
TBone
Gonna need some hookers and blow to get through this. Oops, I meant liquor.
daveNYC
Isn’t exactly laser focused. In practice this is just going to end up being blanket immunity for Republican Presidents.
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
I agree violence is more likely if Republicans aren’t in control, but my question was why would there be a civil war if they controlled everything.
Uncle Cosmo
I intend to investigate (1) whether I and my brother are still eligible for EU passports through our Italian ancestors, (2) if the Italian authorities are still hawking vacant domiciles in the countryside or small towns for a pittance contingent upon repair and occupation, and (3) what investment would be required to repair said properties. It might be prudent to have a transatlantic bolt-hole for la famiglia if things go pear-shaped over here. Even if they do not it would still be nice to have a place for extended holidays on the Boot or the Triangle – maybe even within bicycling distance of either of the two ancestral towns.
(ETA: And meanwhile, put aside my German refresher studies for Italian. Couldn’t hurt, could it?)
Jackie
@opiejeanne: Baud said Redding is red in a blue state. I think you misread. 😊
RaflW
@TaMara: Absolutely this.
The project now to November is to win the presidency and the US House (the latter is, if anything, even more deeply urgent, because the former is more uncertain. We need a backstop, and it’s likely to be the House).
But g-d help us, the judiciary is out of control. I have some shreds of hope because Biden and Schumer have done yeoman work rebuilding the federal bench, but they haven’t had the opportunity to do much with a few of the most radical Appellate Courts and of course the Radical Six have broken out in a full right wing gallop.
Old School
From The Onion:
ewrunning
@Martin: Why not six? Also Leonard Leo.
Omnes Omnibus
@prostratedragon: Not my intention. Since I was freely offering my opinion beforehand, I thought I should mark my prediction to market.
gene108
@cain:
The geriatric motherfuckers in Congress aren’t going to do shit. They’ll fail to act, because in a crisis there are three possible responses, which are fight, flight, or freeze.
The freeze response is when the crisis is so large, beyond what you imagined possible, that executive brain functions shutdown. You lose the ability to respond.
This is what Congressional Democrats will do. They will freeze. The old as leadership in the Senate cannot process “their friends across the aisle” are participating in a full blown right-wing revolution to shape this country as they see fit, no matter how unpopular those policies are.
J. Arthur Crank
Is exchanging pleasantries on a tarmac still illegal? Asking for a friend.
MisterForkbeard
@Soprano2: I don’t know. Maybe that’s helpful – it WAS a ruling just for Trump, to benefit him maximally. They’ll find another way to undermine it if a Democrat actually tries to take advantage of it.
TBone
@gene108: GTFOH with the freeze baloney.
I DISSENT
Martin
I still think blue states should fire up their regulatory machines, go after every gun and environmental and corruption law they can dream up. If the court wants a right-wing free for all, they can only get that by hearing and clearing these cases being churned out of the states – they can’t wave them away like a challenge to a conservative law.. It’s that activity by the right that got us most of these rulings. The court isn’t likely to let any of these laws stand, but the only way to get rid of them is to hear them because they are matters of federal constitutionality. Use the sovereignty of states to force the court to decide whether to address these matters or hear the challenges against federal regulatory efforts. There’s only 2000 federal judges. Flood them out.
JaySinWA
According to the article he has already “skated” from legal consequences, since they decided not to prosecute even with the evidence that was determined to be found illegally. He gets back the phone and the state has to delete what it got by copying everything.
Maybe it keeps some evidence out of a civil suit.
jimmiraybob
@Baud:
“Most likely, submission, as it is in most autocracies.”
I don’t know if I responded to this but, yes. But when submission wears out what usually happens as resistance rises?
I am not trying to be hyperbolic but realistic. If you want a realistic retelling of the “no need to panic everything’ll be OK” mind set during the rise of Nazism and Hitler read “In the Garden of the Beasts” by Gary Larson.
eclare
Totally OT: let’s go Les Bleus! Mbappe is mask free.
UncleEbeneezer
@mvr: Just read some more analysis, and you’re right. This looks like a terrible decision that essentially prevents any possibility of conviction for 1/6 and probably MALDocuments too.
Fuck this SCOTUS and everyone who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary in 2016.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. I’m going to have to step away today at some point; I need to mentally regroup somehow. Thank you for your analysis here; I really appreciate you. If we ever meet in meatspace, I owe you a beverage of your choice.
prostratedragon
A challenging detail:
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: Isn’t Italy another “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation? Maybe not if there’s a hot civil war here, but the move toward fascism is global and is definitely active there.
Belafon
@Old School: First, the Court gets to decide if the act is official or not. But, theoretically, an assassination could be seen as an official act and therefore the court could rule it’s legal.
Mike E
It’s a little late for that, no?
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
Honestly, who knows that would have happened to Nazi Germany if Hitler didn’t have territorial ambitions.
Lapassionara
@FDRLincoln: Good questions, and I don’t have a good answer. I have been trying to figure out a plan B for myself, and I am not facing the challenges you are facing.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: How the fuck do I know? I know that what we can control right now is the first step which is to win in November.
TBone
I refuse to prognosticate. But I will percolate. Rejuvenate. Circumnavigate.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: HEAR, HEAR! ❤️
Baud
@Belafon:
Depends on who assassinates whom.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: What I see is that the conservatives are doing everything they can to neuter the cases against TCFG as much as they can because they don’t think he should be held accountable for anything he’s done, no matter how bad it is.
Skippy-san
There should be massive demonstrations at all of the Fed Six’s houses. They should be afraid to go outside. They have to suffer for what they have done.
ewrunning
What if POTUS “officially” orders DOJ to ignore SCOTUS rulings he deems illegitimate. Seems like Andrew Jackson tried that one
Lapassionara
@UncleEbeneezer: This all goes back to the 2016 election. Everyone who said the Supreme Court didn’t matter in that election is a knave and a fool.
zhena gogolia
@Sean: Yeah, these people are being dramatic. What happens is you hunker down in your kitchen, spend time with your friends, try to live day to day, and try to survive without paying too much attention to the government. I’ve seen it in reality. We had the luxury of not living like that, so we can’t imagine it. Everything has to be like in a Mel Gibson movie. But that’s not the way it is.
gene108
@UncleEbeneezer:
The charges with the the AG and others to overthrow the election are protected official acts.
The discussions with Pence to reject the slate of electors and replace them with fake ones is given presumptive immunity.
His communications on J6 with people trying to contact him and his statements to the public are given presumptive immunity.
Now the district court has to examine how their earlier rulings comply with the new interpretation of presidential immunity, and then Trump gets to challenge those again and again.
Fomenting an insurrection, if done correctly, can be protected actions of a sitting president.
eclare
@FDRLincoln:
I’m sorry, that’s a lot to deal with. I’m kind of trapped too, but not to the extent you are.
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is the main takeaway from the whole discussion. Thank you for always stating the salient point.
Shalimar
@jimmiraybob: When i hear people calling for civil war, I tell them I agree that Americans are evil and we should all kill each other. It doesn’t change their minds, but it does make them avoid me in the future. Which I consider a win.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: Most of the charges in the documents case are about things he did after he left the presidency. None of that has immunity or is protected. Get a grip.
RaflW
Many of you here are familiar with Cheryl Rofer, a former FPer here. I’ve considered her to be a calm and thoughtful observer and analyst.
She just re-skeeted this, and along with OOs “this is bad” upthread, I’m kind of losing my grip on any shreds of optimism.
eta: OO @145 is correct though that we have our shot: This November is truly critical, and being all-in on this fight the next 4+ months is IT.
eclare
@eclare:
Oops, mask back on.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108: The real problem boils down to the billionaires. There are very few of them who don’t need tumbrel rides.
prostratedragon
Well, at least the hearings before Judge Chutkin on official acts should be lit.
jimmiraybob
@Baud: “… why would there be a civil war if they controlled everything.”Because people will not be complacent forever and people get a bit fussy about having a government that tramples natural and civil rights.
I would also enter into evidence the American Revolution which gave the keys to upending centuries of King-Church tyranny over the people. I would also enter into evidence the French Revolution which built upon the principles of the American revolution as far as advancing a more liberal constitutional system.
gene108
@hrprogressive:
So the Republican state Wal-Mart employee who makes so little they qualify for food stamps loses the food stamps?
A lot of this redistribution of wealth from Democratic states to Republican states include some form of welfare support for the poor.
cain
I expect the first set of challenges are going to be to the Department of Education.
A Ghost to Most
Just keep swimming.
Eolirin
@cain: If we hold the Senate and the House, given how severely the administrative state rulings will break the federal government, yeah, I think they will.
At the very least they’ll pass laws undoing these court rulings and threaten to expand the court if they’re struck down.
Unfortunately “if we hold the Senate” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I really wish we had won in NC and WI in 2022. So close on both. We wouldn’t need to worry about the Senate so much this cycle if we had.
Shalimar
@Belafon: If the President assassinates the Supreme Court, apparently it’s presumptively fine now.
cain
@jimmiraybob: We are very entitled people and we don’t understand when something is no longer a thing.
The right wingers are so used to this distability, but hwen they start seeing national parks privatized, or things that were normal no longer normal because it’s all turned into pollution mess – they’ll start complaining – at some point “we did it for Jesus” is not going to be very compelling when they are dying from it.
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
Your assuming a lot about how many and which people will be affected by Republican rule. As we see in red states, most people don’t care that much. Also, Trump’s prior time as president.
Maybe in 70 years, but I see little point in thinking about what might happen long term.
RaflW
@gene108: I suspect the deep thread of “punish the poor” running through Republican ideology will take care of further cutting aid to those in need in red states without unhelpful “screw the red states” anger by liberals.
We need to focus on the work, hrprogressive et al: Win elections. Punishing red states doesn’t get us that.
Skippy-san
@Soprano2: Because they want Project 2025 to come to pass. Like so many Americans they don’t think it will affect them. They want a 9-0 Court.
ewrunning
I rewrote line from Judge Chutkan’s previous ruling to reflect SCOTUS decision. “Presidents are noW kings and Mr. Trump is FOREVER president.
MisterForkbeard
@UncleEbeneezer: I don’t quite see the MALdocuments case being nullified yet – Trump has the docs sent to this home as part of his official acts, but didn’t declassify anything while president, and then as not-president failed every security concern and process and also refused to follow the law for returning them – and lied to the government repeatedly in the process.
Everything Jack Smith is trying to get him on seems outside of this ruling, though IANAL. That said, this ruling does indicate that the Republican justices are going to protect him on everything.
Mike E
@jimmiraybob: the civil war happens between red state assholes when they fight over which dumb ass factions “deserve” to rule their little conch kingdoms. These are the same motherfuckers who believe JFK Jr is coming back.
Skippy-san
@Baud: I think Trump will pursue some really bad economic policies that will destroy the economy. It will hurt all of us, but the poor most. His tax and tariff proposals will be a disaster.
The market will go up for a while, but even the Fed can’t save the level of disaster that will ensue.
FDRLincoln
It could be a lot worse. I am an white old white guy, which helps. And I work as a civilian for a local law enforcement agency, which also helps. Our leadership is elected and accountable to the people of our very blue county, being a Sheriff’s Office, and the Sheriff is a moderate-to-liberal Democrat (yes, there are liberal cops) and not inclined to cooperate with or issue fascist orders.
Trump’s people won’t be able to pull off their fascist plans without the cooperation of local law enforcement, which they can and will get in a lot of places. I don’t think our agency would go along with it, but there are limits, and who knows what could happen if a different sheriff is elected, or a future GOP administration halts all Federal funding for local agencies which don’t cooperate, or god knows what else.
This could tear the country apart. And “flee to blue states” is simply Not an Option for millions of people.
Urza
@Eolirin: They would not lose. Most of the nukes are in the red states. And they are not against using them. This is why while I think we are at the point of dissolving the union and letting them turn into the third world they would be without blue tax support it can’t happen. Even if they were smart enough to not use them on the blue states for fear of fallout reaching them quickly, they would not mind using nukes elsewhere. Nor would they mind using them if they’re guaranteed to lose, after all God is on their side and will save them.
Eolirin
@Skippy-san: The Chevron reversal and this new ruling threaten to upend the economy all by themselves. It’ll take some time for this to shake out, but the lack of a stable regulatory regime is paralyzing to businesses.
Eolirin
@Urza: They don’t magically get the nuclear launch codes ffs.
NotMax
Whiplash time.
“Official acts.”
Didn’t an argument in the Colorado ballot access case determine the president s not an official?
Mike E
@Urza: congratulations, this is a spectacularly stupid take!
Bruce K in ATH-GR
We’re going to be spending most of the rest of the 21st century dealing with the fallout from the Roberts Court, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’m not certain that the United States will still exist at the end of it, or even by 2050, not in a form the Founders would recognize.
Shalimar
@Eolirin: Just wait to see what happens to businesses if Trump is re-elected and implements a 50% tariff on imported goods on top of all the other chaos.
Bill Arnold
@JWR:
They intentionally took a little over 4 months to do that. That decision could have been made in a few days.
SCOTUS is guilty of obstruction of justice.
DesertFriar
“Will no one rid me of these meddlesome justices?”
– Joe the First
Eolirin
@Shalimar: Sure. Everything will be much worse with Republican control of the other branches. But this alone is sufficient to break the country.
JWR
From the Associated Press:
NotMax
@Eolirin
America the Suitiful.
trollhattan
Kids, this is why you don’t locate a launch facility near what appears to be a very crowded city. China apparently has their own Elon.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c897xl1r7v9o
Quinerly
I am convinced Graham is being blackmailed.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/30/lindsey-graham-retribution-against-democrats
oldgold
The decision seems to take “abuse of power” off the table as a basis for a criminal prosecution. If POTUS has the power, how the POTUS uses that power, no matter how corruptly, is now not susceptible to criminal prosecution.
Just another awful decision by this group of corrupt political ideologues.
prostratedragon
@Bill Arnold: Yes. As expected after that very thorough Circuit ruling.
Need to burn some of this off? Tribute to a champion: “Right Off,” Miles Davis and John McLaughlin.
ETA written before seeing account of Justice Sotomayor’s “jabs.”
gene108
@RaflW:
Dems do not have it in them to find ways to use power to cement their control of government. They are mostly process driven institutionalists.
Pass voting rights legislation with teeth should be the number one thing, if they take back the House and hold the Senate. Second, repeal the 1929 Apportionment Act and expand the House. Make sure Democratic urban areas get the same more or representation than rural areas.
They might, if they really try hard, pass the first. They won’t touch the second, even though it could cement their control of the House and presidency, with a rebalanced EC, for a generation.
They’re going to be whole bunch of let’s not be hasty or rash bullshit floating around.
trollhattan
@JWR: Can I get a shout-out for McConnell’s outright theft of two of those sinister seats? What a clusterfuck.
Shalimar
@Quinerly: Which always brings up the question “with what?”
It’s common knowledge that he’s gay. What has Graham actually done that he is afraid people will learn about?
Suzanne
@Quinerly: That is a horrifying thought. I cannot say you’re wrong. Fuck.
Bill Arnold
@TBone:
It is not just delay.
It is delay with the hope that it will push back a trial to after the election, and that Trump wins the election and pardons himself and terminates all Federal cases against himself.
ETA in other words, the delay’s intent is both obstruction of justice and election interference.
They might not have succeeded, though.
Sure Lurkalot
@gene108: I tend to agree that no federal cases vee Trump will ever go to trial. Extraordinary circumstances suggest extraordinary action, send the cases to the court of public opinion. Leak everything about all the traitorous actions by all the traitors. They will never be accountable any other way now.
Mai Naem mobile
I find this really really depressing. Its like the 6 GOP Supremes aren’t even trying to hide it. They’re just all in the tank for TFG. These fuckers don’t even care that there is a very good chance that he committed espionage. This isn’t some stupid partisan stuff, this is national security.
Soprano2
@Eolirin: I think business is going to find that this thing they thought they wanted isn’t what they actually want. They’ll long for the days when things were more stable.
eclare
@Soprano2:
Agree. I have heard “markets hate uncertainty” for decades.
TBone
@Skippy-san: ✊
Shalimar
@Soprano2: The other disastrous policy that Trump has promised is deporting millions of immigrants. We’re already in a tight labor market with wages increasing at a higher level than they have in decades. Imagine what removing 5% of the workforce is going to do to small businesses.
TBone
@Shalimar: 😆💙
Sister Golden Bear
Shorter SCOTUS: If the president does it, it’s not illegal.*
*But only if the president is a Republican.
jimmiraybob
@Baud:
“but I see little point in thinking about what might happen long term.”
Seriously?
SenyorDave
@Quinerly: And it can’t be that he’s gay, because nobody cares anymore. I say it’s something weird, maybe involving a goat and latex.
Or maybe it’s like the episode of the Simpsons where we find out that Troy McClure sleeps with the fishes, and it isn’t because the mob had him rubbed out and he’s very much alive.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Villago Delenda Est:
Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: True (and important!). I should’ve been clearer but any evidence to motive from when he was in office will be tough to get in. That creates a much tougher prosecution for some of the MAL charges, but not all. I don’t think MAL Documents crimes are in as much trouble as Jan 6 but this decision will def have negative ramifications for both. And Cannon can use it to slow things down even more. Hopefully, DOJ is working on something to get her removed (not sure if that’s possible yet, I’ve seen differing opinions on that from respectable lawyers).
JaySinWA
@Eolirin: There’s a new business opportunity. Don’t like a regulation? Fabulously Wealthy? Spin up a business designed to be affected and file suit. A scavenger business model. Vulture capital should love it.
Belafon
Just remember, though: Biden had a bad debate performance. /sarc
gene108
@cain:
Almost none of the SCOTUS rulings will hurt straight white middle and upper class conservatives. The execution of this new legal environment will make sure to not cause Republican voters any inconvenience.
*******************
The right-wing revolution that’s underway isn’t going to radically alter the lives of most people. This isn’t going to be like Stalin forcing agricultural collectives to exist in a recklessly short period of time that destabilizes everything.
Some number of immigrants will be rounded up into camps.
LGBTQ+ people are going to suffer.
But Bill the electrical engineer will still go to work everyday, will still get paid a middle class wage, and his life will go on largely unchanged. He’ll read about immigrants lives being shattered, homosexual marriages being dissolved, but since it’s not affecting the burning desire to get off his ass and fight isn’t going to be there.
We see with so many issues like gun control, for example, where a hyper focused minority overwhelms what most of the public wants.
cain
@Sure Lurkalot:
Unfortunately, it also means that a Republican president will be allowed to commit crimes. They are already allow a lawbreaker to run.
The press looks at all of this as some kind of curiosity – seemingly forgetting that they are also citizens of this country.
Eolirin
@gene108: We need to win first. Voting rights will happen if we do. We’d have the votes for a filibuster carve out; everyone we’d need is on the record for it and the legislation is already drafted. We just need to lose zero of the hard races we’re facing down. ><
And then we need to deal with the courts. Because they will strike it down otherwise. After these rulings I suspect there’ll be a lot more stomach for court packing than there was before them. Corner Post and the undoing of Chevron is an existential threat to the entire administrative state and the US economy as a whole.
With those two done, I’m not sure we’d need the reapportionment, even if it’d guarantee control of the house and white house, instead of just make it really likely. So yeah we might not be able to get that with a bare 50 seat majority. If we had closer to 60 senate seats maybe.
And the Senate remains the bigger lift regardless. Even with DC statehood, which is probably even odds.
Mai Naem mobile
@Quinerly: I’ve pretty much assumed Graham’s been blackmailed for a while. For all you know they might have even tried honeypotting him with a guy during one of his stays at a Trump resort. TFG was know for spying on famous people staying a MarALago to have dirt on them.
prostratedragon
Another bright spot (😏) is that maybe we’ll be seeing some moe indictments that were being held back, since any trial is now on an actuarial schedule anyway.
⛓️💥:
Soprano2
It would devastate them, but at least those people in small towns wouldn’t have to hear another language in the store anymore. *rolleyes*rolleyes
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Well, with that ruling, Rogers will go down as arguably the worst Chief Justice in the history of the Court, right there with Taney.
Assuming the finish winning, then they’ll write the history.
cain
@gene108:
I’m not sure that is 100% – there is always the law of unintended consequences. If the economy tanks, and it will. Bill the EE guy is going to be out of a job.
TBone
@ewrunning: 👍😣😭
RaflW
Not to go too deep into dooming, but Sherrilyn Ifill, former NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and current law prof at Howard called today’s ruling “A grotesque and hideous distortion of the rule of law” and a national and global catastrophe.
And while global catastrophe seems a bit strong, the US does still carry moral suasion on the world state (it’s one of may reasons Trump winning in 2016 was so terrible. The US combo of Bush II and Trump signaled that our electorate had gone deeply off kilter).
This case granting the US President ultimate immunity for official acts will make lives just that little increment worse in other countries. “See, even the US says presidents can do anything.”
TBone
@Mike E: 🎯
Villago Delenda Est
@Eolirin: I dare say that the fallout from Dobbs will be felt even in the Senate races. Women, even Rethug women, are pissed. Their lives are being endangered by this bullshit.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW: Next best thing to Vlad Putin.
TBone
@Eolirin: thank you, cooler head prevailing person!
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterForkbeard: Generally agree, but it gives Trump and Cannon another avenue to create never-ending delays since Cannon will likely schedule a hearing for each individual act and then refuse to rule on them etc.
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
If you want to predict what will happen 70 years from now, have at it.
NotMax
@Mai Naem mobile
“Here, Waltine, try on these Speedos.”
//
Villago Delenda Est
That’s been going on in slow motion in this country for 50 years, what with the corporatization of agriculture.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: Most of the country blamed the original Kent State on the protesters. Mind you, that was the same electorate that had reelected Nixon in a landslide.
TBone
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I told hubby at 9:45 a.m. to enjoy his last fifteen minutes of standing on truly American soil.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I’m hoping he goes solo.
Sure he thinks highly of himself, even as weird as he is, but solo is not much fun. (OK, who else is going to think highly of weirdo?) Of course given who we are talking about he’s likely doing solo most of the time already….
TBone
@Bill Arnold: they’re traitors committing treason.
JWR
@Belafon: And the mic, it is dropped. ;)
TBone
@DesertFriar: ❤️✊😆
Chris Johnson
@Sean: For what it’s worth, I’ve been going by, let’s call it ‘Johnson’s Razor’: “if you’re being told you must immediately prepare for and wage civil war and there’s no alternative, you’re being told it by a Russian spook paid to convince you of that”.
Doesn’t matter if you’re on the left wing or the right. It’s the one common factor. They might be telling the right wingers there will be black militia running checkpoints to make white motorists kiss their feet (I have seen this claimed and believed). They might be telling the left wingers Genocide Joe is actually the one making Netanyahu conduct a genocide in order to sell more arms or whatever, I’m not up on the latest bullshit. But the one common factor is ‘hey, you! Begin shooting at that other American, RIGHT NOW’.
I more or less judge ’em by how intractable they are on that ‘no alternative’ point, and certain other metrics. What I’m saying is, yes, you are indeed being told to do that, and like it’s just a normal or indeed inevitable thing to do. But you’re being told it by some asshole in Moscow, and you’re being lied to.
TBone
@trollhattan: do I wanna know? To click or not to click, that is the question.
Omnes Omnibus
Republicans are monarchists.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: Bill the electrical engineer is more likely than he used to be to have LGBT or immigrant relatives he knows about. We make jokes about being surprised that the leopard ate your face (or your nephew’s face) but it’s a real political force.
TBone
@Bill Arnold: yeah, that’s the part I left unsaid. Exactly that – what the delay accomplishes.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Eyes on the prizes, folks.
Cheers,
Scott.
TBone
@Mai Naem mobile: they are traitors committing tre45on.
TBone
@Another Scott: jfc
Merrick Garland is not the man for this moment.
Kelly
I’m heading in to sit at my Mom’s bedside in memory care. She didn’t speak on Saturday.
E.
@FDRLincoln: I just want to drop in here and tell you, you are not alone, many, including me, are tormented by our precarious financial situation. At 58 I am having a very hard time finding work that pays more than $20/hour and have reached an age where people don’t want to hire me. This economy might be good but not for everyone. I have a very realistic fear of homelessness with another rent hike by the J. Galt Property Management Group, LLC. Yes that is really what they are called.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Don’t you mean, the same electorate that *would* re-elect Nixon in a landslide in 2.5 years?
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Most of the country?? Not in my experience at the time.
Landslide? Depends on the metric. Nixon 43.4%, Humphrey 42.7%, Wallace 13.5%. Nixon won in 32 states, Humphrey in 13 plus D.C., Wallace won 5.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: 💙👍
jimmiraybob
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Republicans are monarchists.”
Many Years ago while watching the McLaughlin Group, Pat Buchanan said that he would be happy with a king as long as it was a benevolent king. Presumably a Catholic king. Very Medieval.
Villago Delenda Est
This ‘official acts” felgercarb” boils down to semantics. It corrodes the rule of law by making the law ambiguous, at best. The Federalist Society is going to destroy the rule of law, and invite violent revolution in the process.
To quote Darth Sidious, “Wipe them out. All of them.”
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: thank you for sharing that. On Guillotines…
gene108
@cain:
It might happen. Lack of regulations leads to another asset bubble that pops one day and, if we’re lucky, we’re back to another Great Recession.
I doubt even a Republican Congress to go along with Trump’s idea to replace income taxes with tariffs. The rich businessmen who underwrite the Republican Party will make sure such extreme changes aren’t going to happen, and Trump’s White House will be staffed with people focused on Project 2025. The tariff idea isn’t part of the plan.
Mike E
@Chris Johnson: yep, this is the point I made at kos and I expect to be put in timeout when I said their site is now as compromised as the corporate-captured media outlets. Good times!
Villago Delenda Est
@Kelly: Thoughts with you and your mom. Your situation just sucks.
eclare
@Kelly:
Oh I’m so sorry. What an awful year for you all.
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: If anything this ruling shows that all of the Garland Shoulda Moved Faster!!1! takes were complete and utter bullshit. There’s nothing Garland could have done to get around this likely outcome.
azlib
The hypocrisy of this court majority is quite astonishing. On the one hand they give Presidents absolute immunity for most acts and on the other hand hogtie regulations. Seems to be a bit of a contradiction.
Chris Johnson
She absolutely knows Trump is a traitor who stole secrets to give to Putin at Mar-A-Lago. She knows the Court is protecting him. She’s still on the Court, and she is pissed.
I think quite a lot of all this operates on the assumption that the truth will never come out, and the truth hasn’t come out because it’s so embarrassing and problematic that everyone would rather resolve these things without facing it.
When that proves impossible, one option is to face it. Not only is the former guy a creep, a felon, a criminal, he has also been a traitor working for a foreign power this whole time. And, in trying to use him as a tool to broaden their own power, the majority of the Court also become traitors, to the country and to the system they’re supposed to head.
This is not all that complicated.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: in 1972, not 1968.
eclare
@E.:
That’s the name? Wow. Best wishes on finding something.
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: my statement had nothing to do with that, but okay I guess.
I was referring to the fact that weaponizing the DOJ is now legal for President Biden (until his case gets cert at the Supremacists Court, where they will carve him out for made up reasons).
West of the Rockies
@Kelly:
Best wishes, Kelly. That’s brutal.
Ohio Mom
@FDRLincoln: I feel you. My autistic son may have lower support needs but he, like your son, is going to need some level of life-long supervision after Ohio Dad and I are no longer.
We live in a blue corner of a red state and while at the moment Ohio is fairly generous, it is always in the back of my mind that the other shoe could drop at any time. And to add to that, what’s to inspire a totalitarian state to maintain a robust social safety net?
Being a refugee isn’t in the cards for either of our families. No other country wants our children.
If the worst comes to pass, you and I are fated to keep our heads down. Maybe we can shoot one another knowing looks now and again.
Mike E
@Matt McIrvin: the “buyers remorse” moment happened in 1974. Today, the judiciary just signaled they remain bought. Ditto what Villago says.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Not really an option if you’re one of those with a bullseye on your back. You either flee, go out shooting, or get rounded up and slaughtered in death camps. That’s the end product of every fascist autocracy. 1930s Germany and 1970s Cambodia is quite instructive in that matter. Especially the latter. They were rounding up and murdering people with glasses for Christ’s sake. You don’t submit to that. You fight, flee, or die.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: 🎯
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: this court will look better when it’s burnt to ash
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Kent State was in 1970, though.
lollipopguild
@azlib: Rules,laws,taxes are for thee not for me!
Chris Johnson
@Ksmiami: That is not actually the correct definition of the word ‘fired’, but thanks for playing, violence-demander…
NotMax
TBone
The Roberts court has its finger on the pulse of the nation.
Unfortunately for us that nation is Saudi Arabia.
//
Belafon
@azlib: They’re jealous of how Iran is run.
prostratedragon
Straight outta Brooklyn, and timely squared: “Who Is This America Dem Speak of Today?” Antibalas.
Philbert
@Martin: Years back some drunk guy disabled the Alaska pipeline with a bear rifle.
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: On another forum I frequent, a frightened commenter posted a screenshot of something he’d seen in some 4chan cesspit, which was some white supremacist type trying to use threats to swing votes: he said “voting records” were not private, and bragged that after Trump won they were gonna expose and punish everyone who had voted against him, and we’d all be sorry. (Vague threats, of the retaliation being “worse than anything you can imagine.”) So you’d best vote for Trump, or maybe just stay home if you can’t manage to do that.
Words can’t express the contempt I have for anyone who would do that. What strikes me is that he thought it’d be effective *and* thought he could say that and occupy some kind of moral high ground. It’s a world view that respects only power and cruelty. My granddad fought a war against that.
Gvg
@eclare: I am not sure it’s most business behind this nonsense. It’s fanatics. The business side of the Republican Party lost control and is never able to reign in the crazies anymore. We can’t ever count on business facts mattering and saving us now. They really believe in magic conspiracy theories, or don’t even know they should ask how something would work or affect them.
piratedan
well, if the DOJ is allowed to be weaponized that’s one very bad step indeed and I’m sure that the Dems would not abuse this powerful expansion and retooling. The GOP has no such constraints.
There are times that I let my political Id run amok and would then plan on after the July 4th holiday that Biden accepts Garland’s resignation. Appoints Jack Smith to the position and in the following week, GOP members of the House, Senate, SCOTUS members and state houses and legislatures are arrested for the attempted overthrow of the United States of America. To be followed by those that funded said efforts and supported said efforts via logistics and favorable media coverage.
Granted that’s a fantasy.. and as soon as those people are placed into permanent incarceration, we can have some new justices give the laws on the books a proper review making all that shit illegal from this point on but sorry, while that ruling was in effect, you made it legal to have these actions be covered.
cain
@gene108:
Trump is an authoritarian. He will not tolerated dissent and he holds the heart and minds of a cult who will pick him over anybody in the Republican party. His kids will be knifing people in the back all over the place as well as his sycophants.
He could just as easily decide bomb or shoot anybody who goes against him and he will declare it an official act. If the SCOTUS disagrees with him – he’ll be more than happy to educate them.
Omnes Omnibus
Gvg
@gene108: pollution unchecked hurts surrounding property values. The original regulations were based on taking value from non owners without compensation (surrounding community), especially water pollution. You better believe people will care about that. They are super sensitive about property values, because it’s most people’s biggest asset.
Ksmiami
@Chris Johnson: I’m not demanding anything- yet, but arrows are pointing in a direction where violence is inevitable.
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: Okay but weaponizing DOJ to target our political rivals, goes against everything we are supposed to believe in, as Liberals/Progressives.
FDRLincoln
@Ohio Mom: Yeah, that’s pretty much what we have to do: keep our heads down. I mean, if it came down to someone trying to ship my son off to a camp for useless eaters, well, we go down fighting in that case, my wife and I are agreed. The weak and disabled never fare well in a dictatorial state.
But the idea of easily fleeing to a blue state, or abroad, is simply Not Doable. And participating in an actual civil war…well, when I was younger, sure, but I’m too old now. I’d be more of a hindrance than a help.
But on the other hand, I REALLY do not want to be a Good German sitting back and doing nothing while the Republic dies.
Again, how do we balance our ethics and morality against our obligations to our families if the worst happens?
I have studied history all my life. I do NOT enjoy living through it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gvg: Damaging property values through pollution is theft.
Villago Delenda Est
There’s a reason why “may you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse.
Eyeroller
@Villago Delenda Est: The right is more concerned about the damage to property values when the owner isn’t allowed to develop the land however they want if say it’s a wetland. Screw the neighbors.
ArchTeryx
@FDRLincoln: Trouble is in a fascist autocracy you aren’t given the luxury of your values. If you or yours are targets – and they will be – fight, flee, or die are the only choices you are given. And the latter won’t be quick or painless. Pol Pot loved torturing people to death over weeks. So did Idi Amin. Many people were starved to death in German concentration camps, not just gassed. It’s a very bleak outlook but as a student of history… you know what “fascist autocracy” ends in.
pajaro
(Ex lawyer/lawprof here). It’s hard to overstate how bad the immunity decision is. It’s one of the worst decisions in the history of the Court, and, in its impact, it may turn out to be the worst. It’s bad enough that it pretty much leaves Trump off the hook for Jan 6th (making Garland’s delay quite beside the point). What’s much much worse is that it gives Trump a free pass, in advance, for whatever he might want to do in his second term if he’s elected. He’s said that he wants to be a dictator, and the Court just told him, “go right ahead.” The distinctions between private acts and official acts are effectively worthless, given the procedural obstacles that they impose on how one proves the basis for the act. If you read hair on fire articles talking about the opinion, believe them.
I respect this blog a ton for how much it focuses on what we can to do help, rather than rend our garments. I know, therefore, that none of you needed any incentive to fight harder, but I believe that the Court has massively raised the stakes in this election.
Gloria DryGarden
Karma dept,
do your thing
11:11 am
Omnes Omnibus
You do what you can. If your circumstances limit what you can do, then it is what it is. Every little act helps.
Gvg
@Chris Johnson: I think some on this court are also traitors and or very corrupt. Well we know some of them take money. I think all of them should be carefully investigated for criminal acts. I don’t see why bribery statutes that apply to all other government employees shouldn’t apply to them. I know they have weakened some of those laws. Well might that not indicate what they are most guilty of? And look into their donors too. I just don’t feel it’s all coincidence. Of course the federalist society itself is suspicious. The government ought to have enough reason to look by now.
different-church-lady
And the aftermath of a lot of stupid people in 2016 continues unabated.
ArchTeryx
@Matt McIrvin: Voting records are private, but party registration is not. That’s how gerrymandering works – if party reg was considered private information, gerrymandering would be much more difficult to do with precision. So every registered Democrat gets an instant target on their back in a lawless Trump regime. The threat was poorly stated, but it’s quite real.
Soprano2
@Kelly: I’m so sorry. I assume this is new.
Ohio Mom
@gene108: What you describe isn’t so different than Jim Crow was for white people and northerners. A lot of whom did nothing to support the Civil Rights movement. (Though nowadays they love to misquote MLK).
prostratedragon
At least there’s this:
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: As are donation records, and mine are VERY DELIBERATELY public. I want to stick out like a sore thumb because I’m safer than just about anyone in this country, and if people like me won’t do that we’re already lost.
But claiming secret ballots aren’t secret is old Jim Crow bullshit just like claiming the election is on Wednesday or that you’ll be arrested at the polling place if you have outstanding parking tickets.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
I’m sure AL will be putting up a feel good post about that.
UncleEbeneezer
@pajaro: If Trump wins, the 6-3 right-wing majority who gave us this bullshit will likely become 7-2 or 8-1. Anyone outraged by this ruling should have one and only one mission: re-electing Joe (f-ing) Biden!
frosty
@Eolirin: “They would lose. Very badly. We have all the people and all the money and most of the industry.”
Same as last time they tried it.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: I just donated some more cash to Biden’s campaign. It’s something.
SW
Beyond redemption
Ohio Mom
@Kelly: Holding you and your mom in the light.
Omnes Omnibus
I’d just like to point out that, for 250 years, American presidents didn’t need to ask for immunity.
narya
NJ AG just declined to renew TCFG’s liquor licenses, with a temporary permit in place pending a hearing.
ETA for precision.
SenyorDave
@prostratedragon: Maybe the brothers can get to him before the Aryan Brotherhood does.
Origuy
@Uncle Cosmo: I looked into Italy a little. No Italian ancestry, but I have been studying the language and probably meet the financial requirements. You might want to subscribe to thelocal.it, which is a news site in English that is for expatriates and tourists, mostly.
gene108
@Ohio Mom:
That’s a good summary of what I think will happen. It’s very hard to get the majority to care about problems faced by a minority subset of the population, because those problems aren’t direct threats to the majority.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree with this take. People like Bill the Electrician are fools if they think they won’t be affected at some level. It may take time, but the economy will be negatively affected by bad policy decision after bad policy decision, if there’s not some outright violent civil conflict that disrupts everything
It will only be the 0.001% connected to the powers that be that will be relatively unharmed
jimmiraybob
@frosty:
“Same as last time they tried it.”
Oy. Had “they,” and I assume we’re talking the Confederacy, had control of 2 0r 3 branches of the federal Government in DC it would have been a different outcome.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Even though he’s old?!, lol
Quiltingfool
@zhena gogolia: Yep. I’m rewatching The Man in the High Castle (Prime) and you can plainly see how people behave under fascist rule. They follow the rules, keep their heads down, feed their kids, etc. They know if they go guns blazing, there will be reprisals. Innocent people will die.
One thing I notice in that show is how the American Nazis, once they got rid of “undesirables” (POC, for example), they then turned their knives on anyone in their group who put a foot wrong or somehow lost favor.
Seems if everyone isn’t free, no one is free.
SW
So Biden can legally do a drone strike on Mara lago?
Eolirin
Honestly, the Presidential immunity thing while really bad doesn’t concern me that much. If people like Trump end up in power again, with our system as unable to handle them as it is right now, it won’t really matter that you can’t go after them for crimes in office. They’re not going to leave office in a way that lets them be tried for crimes anyway. They won’t fuck up the coup attempt a second time.
The Chevron reversal and the Corner Post ruling on the other hand are a judicial coup, one that renders the majority of the executive branch’s authority to the courts instead. That shit cannot stand if we’re going to have a functioning federal government.
Misterpuff
@Martin: Make it four, Boney Carrot and the Chief can stay and call balls and strikes. Bye Bye Beer Boy.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, I brain farted about the date, was thinking Kent State was in ’73 for some reason.
But there was a Gallup poll taken the next day in which a majority of respondents blamed the victims.
Mike E
@jimmiraybob: and if my aunt had balls she’d be my
uncleteam’s equipment manager. You’re being a one note song now.Omnes Omnibus
Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social
·
2h
PSA: if you’re talking about doing actual political violence on social media in public, you are a dangerously ignorant twerp who lacks the situational awareness required to do anything useful for anyone.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: This is why being out was so important to the gay rights movement. Most people eventually stopped being able to deny that they knew anyone who was gay.
There are red staters who still live in this bubble where they don’t know any out LGBT people, don’t know any non white people or non Christians, etc. But it’s much less true in most of America than it used to be. That’s what Republicans see as the looming apocalypse in fact. They’re not wrong that we did that.
Mr. Bemused Senior
To me, the purpose of a society is to allow people to live their lives with reasonable security, have families, pursue happiness. Not everyone is prepared or able to fight tyranny.
I doubt it’s going to come to a shooting war here, but it’s not impossible.
Matt McIrvin
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Which is great if you’re in the group who are allowed to do that. The question is whether they can crack down on everyone they hate and not get any friction from the majority for it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Matt McIrvin: I remember that. I was at the University of Michigan at the time. It was the single most radicalizing event of my life
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Bad policy decisions have caused economic problems before. Bad economic policy leads to asset bubbles or fiscal malfeasance like Enron.
They aren’t the threat to democracy we all feel these SCOTUS rulings and Trump pose.
Bill’s not getting rounded up to a camp and being deported. Bill’s marriage to a his female wife won’t be made illegal by legislative or judicial fiat.
He’ll be out of work for awhile, and depending on how old he is, he’s seen this cycle before whether or not he was laid off before.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Matt McIrvin: you’ll get no argument from me. The Republicans seem bent on destroying the society I prefer to inhabit.
SW
Death of the Republic. 27 BC. History takes note.
ArchTeryx
@Mr. Bemused Senior: The movie Fury, a WWII epic about an American tank crew in Germany in the waning days of the European phase of the war, had a lot of problems.
But one thing they handled extremely well is exactly what happens in late-stage fascist regimes, especially when they start to collapse. They found fields full of starved to death concentration camp victims (scenes so bleak they were cut from the movie). The SS were hanging women and children because they refused to fight to the death for NSDAP. One particular scene included a Burgermeister (town mayor) who surrendered after a tank squad takes out most of the SS soldiers in an occupied town. His official residence was full of children soldiers, led by an SS officer. Brat Pitt’s tank commander (who knew German) asked the Burgermeister if the SS officer was the one hanging kids. He responded in the affirmative. The surrendering SS officer was quite promptly machine gunned down in the street by an American GI.
That’s how it ultimately ends.
bcwbcw
Perhaps, Biden should begin by ordering the removal of the six right-wing Supreme Court justices Secret Service protection; that, would clearly be within the scope of his official acts.
Dangerman
Posted by John Dean:
“When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Richard Nixon, 1974
Affirmed, US Supreme Court, 2024
I don’t see how the Courts decide what is an official act and what is a private act.
Eolirin
@Dangerman: It will depend on what outcome they want.
Ksmiami
I just wrote 20 more postcards and wrote to the Supreme Court that reform will come. Also, now I’m hoping super intelligent AI takes over because that actually will be preferable to Republican authoritarian bs
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: the factoid I do always remember about it: the founders of Devo went to Kent State and knew some of the students who were killed. They cite it as a formative event. The band was often treated as just a weird novelty act but the whole robot fascist shtick and cranky lyrics about “de-evolution” came out of angry, wounded idealism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: As you know, I frequently take issue with your take on things, but this is the right response to what just happened. November matters. Now, more than ever.
Eolirin
Also, given how prone this court is to accepting bribes, with Chevron gone, regulatory rules will be going to the highest bidder, and with Corner Post, they can keep the auction going forever! Nothing is ever gonna be settled law.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
I’m more talking along the lines of general societal collapse. That would affect just about everybody
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: we need to win and we need to reform the Court. It’s out of control. That is the only thing that matters in November.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
58 percent.
Polls right on the heels of an event before the brain has time to process it are unreliable at best.
Polling was by landline, which by its nature skewed to an older, more conservative cohort. Most households had a single phone line, so not necessarily representative of the spectrum within the household.
NotMax
@Dangerman
Consult the court approved Magic 8-ball.
“It’s got the Great Seal of the United States stamped on it ‘n everything!”
//
Mai Naem mobile
@bcwbcw: their sponsors would just provide them a private security gratuity because that’s legal now.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
We need to win in November, I agree. I think we also need to consider the very real possibility that we could lose and prepare for that. What are we supposed to do if Trump wins and then begins acting like a dictator?
The federal government has already been effectively neutered if I understand the recent Chevron reversal and Corner Post. The Senate map isn’t looking great. If we lose the Senate but hold onto the Presidency and the House, that won’t be fixed anytime soon. I recall a post by Silverman a few years back that pointed out that due to demographic changes, the Senate will increasingly favor small states, ie Republican ones in the future.
This is to say nothing of what the schenigans the SCOTUS will do with election cases or even a second coup attempt by the GOP/Trump
jimmiraybob
@Mike E: “You’re being a one note song now.”
The possibility of waking up in a far-right, Christian Nationalist, authoritarian country run by Trump/MAGA and the Federalist Society makes it an important note.
Ramalama
@Uncle Cosmo: Just a head’s up to everybody talking ’bout a relocation. You need to start yesterday on applying to live in Not-USA.
Other countries’ timelines may vary. Canada’s immigration is super tight. People toss off about moving to Canada if X happens but lots of people in the US do not qualify. You’d be surprised.
The time when you need to flee is the time it’s too late. Canada closed their borders to all non-Canadians during the pandemic. Who’s to say they won’t do the same with a Civil War down ‘dere?
I migrated to Canada (due to spouse and stuff) and was able to at the time have my family: sibs, uncles, aunts – all get included under my application. I asked around, all of them said, “No thanks.” And then shite got real and some members wondered whether they could move, and … the answer was ‘not now.’
So if you’ve got a toe out the door now, get yourself further along in the process.
If you’re in the US and staying put, god love ya. And go knock on some doors, get people signed up to vote (most of those Jan 6 asshats did not vote), and talk to your relatives about voting for Joe & Kamala.
TBone
@NotMax: 💜😡
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
In 1970, you had a land line if you had a phone at all, IOW practically everyone had one. And even in 1970 the pollsters could randomize within the household by ‘adult with the most recent birthday’ or some such.
Miki
@UncleEbeneezer: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Cannon uses Thomas’ concurrence in the immunity case to rule that the entire MAL documents prosecution is improper because Smith wasn’t confirmed by Congress.
StringOnAStick
@Kelly: I’m sorry your mom is to this point. Peace and strength to you.
Omnes Omnibus
If this is a real question, I would say that a lot of those discussions need to happen in much more secure environments than a blog comment section.
ETA: If a real fascist takeover happens, talking shit on a blog is counterproductive. If you want to fight, it needs to be done with brains and a concern for security.
UncleEbeneezer
@Miki: I think such a ruling would be just begging the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to remove her from the case.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ramalama:
I understand the Conservatives have moved to the far-right in recent years, especially during and after the pandemic. Are you concerned about this?
West of the Rockies
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This is out of the blue and random, but I’m glad you’re here. I know you took some razzing for occasional expression of fears and worries, but you bring positivity and an open mind to discussions here.
That is all. Carry on.
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Right now we need to focus all our energies on reelecting Joe Biden and Democrats up and down the ticket. All other options are more difficult than this one.
Going back to lurking and eating a popsicle from the most diverse blog on the internet.
The Truffle
Someone give me a reason why I should have optimism for this country’s future.
Because I don’t. I just don’t.
i’ll keep sending the letters and postcards. It’s just to keep busy. I just feel like I am putting bandaids in the Titanic’s hull.
E.
So under Corner Post, am I right that if you need an injury to sue this means you need to wait for the trees to fall or the highway to be built before you can sue to stop an agency action?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It is a real question and you have a point. I sincerely think people should prepare for that possible outcome and work towards preventing it
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: I was being facetious in my original comment. It’s a coping mechanism. Ya know, sassy? I’m pissed off and my tongue gets sassy. It’s called snark!
Chris Johnson
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Even the first coup attempt hurt their optics horribly. There is no way that’s getting any better. And every chance that it’s getting so much worse, that the Republican coalition frays.
lowtechcyclist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s easy to say we ought to prepare for the possibility of a Trump win, but I’m not sure any of us can predict what that will mean, beyond perhaps ‘do I or don’t I buy a gun.’ (I’m not.) We don’t know what they’ll try first, what forms resistance might take, what leadership might come from Dem officeholders, etc. We’re going to be in uncharted territory.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: Here’s a question: I have assumed that Smith didn’t indict the other conspirators because there was a danger that the case would get combined w/ the case against TCFG, making it more difficult. Would he now be able to file those cases/that conspiracy, and leave TCFG out, and argue that HIS immunity makes him a different case, and therefore the cases shouldn’t be combined?
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: come sit by me as I ruminate on how best to wish deletion upon that orange mofo.
TBone
@pajaro: 👍💔
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Omnes Omnibus:
And graft in:
Please remember what this election is all about: Trump is a massive threat to US democracy being aided by a Supreme Court 1/3 of which owes it’s tenure on that bench to him.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: 💜✊
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: Ah okay. My bad :)
Sister Golden Bear
@Dangerman:
*Offer null and void if the president is a Democrat.
Omnes Omnibus
@narya:
Off the top of my head, yes. He could.
Sean
@lowtechcyclist:
Exactly. I can’t plan for the vast number of unknowns such a scenario creates. Very few people could. I can barely manage my day-to-day anxiety as is – let alone formulate my checklist for a leaderless fascist resistance plan.
Eolirin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Adam’s analysis was off a bit. It’s not true that small states are all Republican leaning. Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Maryland, etc aren’t all that likely to suddenly turn red, they’re not trending in that direction, and the other small states that are red are all pretty much already in the R column. We will eventually lose Montana, and if things don’t reverse, probably Ohio. We will probably get Susan Collins’s seat when she resigns or dies. We will hopefully get Ron Johnson’s. That’s a wash long term. So the small states getting smaller thing only makes the senate more unrepresentative, it doesn’t really shift the balance of power that much vs the status quo. In order for that demographic trend to lead to overwhelming Republican majorities in the senate, you need to explain how places like Delaware and Vermont start voting for Republican senators.
So it’s going to be very hard to get much over 50 consistently, but growing states like Arizona and Georgia and North Carolina get us there even once we lose Montana and Ohio (though I have some hope Ohio will eventually come back). We can be competitive in those places as long as we prevent too much cheating. The numbers are going to be pretty stable around a 50/50 split with some of the larger battleground states, AZ, GA, WI, and NC in particular, being what tips the balance. That’s assuming political trends continue in the rough direction they have been and we don’t see some kind of sudden change in political direction, like we unfortunately did with Ohio after Obama. Nevada needs shoring up before we can rest easy on that account, but we’ve won in some hard elections, so I’m hopeful it won’t swing like that.
The senate will remain a thoroughly undemocratic body that gives way too much preference to the Dakotas and Wyoming. But we can win it, or at least be competitive, for the forseeable future. It’s just always going to be at a knife’s edge despite the overall population advantage.
And, unfortunately, with so few seats being truly competitive, it’s going to be hard to take it back once it’s lost, as there’ll maybe be one or two, at most, pickup opportunities in a cycle. And we’ll usually be needing to defend more seats than they will.
But we can’t afford to ever lose the White House again. That’s the really scary part of all of this.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@pajaro:
Thank you for this summary.
UncleEbeneezer
@The Truffle: It ain’t over yet.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
aPpArEnTlY yOu NeEd A sArCaSm FoNt.
😉
Ramalama
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Maybe the Canadian conservatives are about 20 years behind USA conservatives. But yes I am concerned. Less so in Quebec. Quebecers and Canadians stand up for shit. They go to the streets, still.
But American conservatives? They are one reason why wifey and I decided to live in Canada even after MA and the feds opened the door to legality for the queers to marry. Revoking same-sex marriage is included in the American Conservative theme song. They get enough MAGOFFS in power it’s done, gay marriage is gone. Along with all the other good stuff Liberals have made happen. Rick Perlstein offers a nice list of what liberals have done for you (.com).
Maybe this is all a game of frogger.
rikyrah
Jasmine Crockett (@JasmineForUS) posted at 10:36 AM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
It is clear that no one is coming to save us! This Supreme Court is anything but SUPREME! I can’t believe the cultist consolidation of power that is taking place before our eyes; IN AMERICA!
This most recent ruling, along with so many others, is dangerous as shit especially for a guy that says I’ll be your Retribution! A guy that we know has no problems breaking the law was just told how to do it and face no consequences! He can order MURDER without consequence & his attorneys argued this!
Trump has taken over the judiciary, he’s running the legislative branch, & the last move is to get back to the White House. 🤯
If you aren’t frightened, you aren’t paying attention.
(https://x.com/JasmineForUS/status/1807800377892347914?t=YsteKF36sBhXk4-mrnBWkQ&s=03)
TBone
What to expect when you’re expecting fascism, Wonkette style:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/hot-presidenting-tip-when-mounting
West of the Rockies
@The Truffle:
Things surely seemed bleak and lost at points in 1863, 1917, 1932, 1941, 1969, 2001, 2016-20…
Yet here we are. We lose only when we stop fighting.
rikyrah
Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) posted at 10:48 AM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
Some good news in SCOTUS opinion:
1. No immunity for unofficial acts; pressuring state officials, fake electors scheme, public statements made as a candidate likely qualify;
2. Immunity for official acts is only presumptive. Conduct must fall within “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” Meetings with VP Pence still on the table.
3. POTUS need not be impeached and convicted first.
(https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1807803513843376337?t=-E61WDr4sbC4i71o_Jkrxw&s=03)
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️😭😭😭😭
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ksmiami:
Assuming best case outcome and we Dems hit the electoral trifecta, my fear is that there still won’t be any political will to do anything that smacks of “reforming the court”.
We could debate all day whether or not there’s even process/votes to make anything, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, happen.
Only thing we can do is everything we can to make sure that trifecta happens and then pound on our people to do something vis a vis the Extreme Court.
As I’ve said elsewhere, we now have arguably one of the worst two Chief Justices presiding. Assuming we get to write the history someday, we won’t be kind.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: We’ve never had such an obvious criminal occupying the White House in 2017.
Ramalama
@Eolirin: Vermont is headed by a Republican of the old school kind.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: The MAGAts are outraged at the “traitor” Coney-Barrett for being very obvious in her concurrence that the convicted felon is fully indictable for attempting a coup.
TBone
@narya: it’s something but it should be a permanent yank instead of a temporary go ahead pending further delay.
I’m so frustrated. I want Dark Brandon to rise up and vanquish that motherfucker. I can’t even do much but fantasize about a horrible end for that small minded, dickish fascist today.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve been hoping for that, at some point, preferably before the election. Getting those details out in public all over again would be helpful. I do NOT presume to know what’s on Jack’s mind, but I’ve wondered about this one for awhile.
TBone
How am I ever gonna get a wink of sleep in October?
There is no weed powerful enough.
Mood music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bm51ihfi1p4
Ohio Mom
@Ramalama: Harsh but fair and true. During the GW years I did a few minutes of goggling about moving to Canada and quickly realized they didn’t want Ohio Family. At all.
We aren’t good candidates for sneaking into another country and except for Ohio Dad, have no facility for learning other languages.
prostratedragon
Asha Ranggupta has a handy flowchart of the “logic” of the court’s immunity categories.
Eolirin
@Ramalama: I’m not talking govenors. Those are fairly frequently the opposite party from the state trends, though it’s becoming less common. When is the last time Vermont voted for a Republican senator, and do you think that’s going to change any time soon?
Ohio Mom
@Sean:
If you are truly having trouble managing your everyday anxiety, and the anxiety is interfering with your daily functioning, please go to your doctor and get meds.
Ksmiami
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: first win, everyone needs to write and petition their representatives – Including sitting in their offices until we get our way.
TBone
I feel like a zombie right now. Shell shocked into submission today. My instincts are to fucking punch things, get some weaponry together and high tail it down to my military friend’s “compound” to plot our reprisal or defense, but my big girl brain says we have to wait in the pot until it starts to simmer with all the other peace frogs. The old fight or flight animal urges are strong. I’ve always been a walking contradiction.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-9EVi_tN8
Right in the feels.
Ksmiami
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I first want to make history, then write it.
TBone
Instinct 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YjRQxRREIqk
RaflW
Fabulous suggestion I just saw on Bsky: Biden should order the IRS to immediately open full tax audits on, hmm, maybe six Supreme Court justices (really just three seem more au courrant).
That’s requesting that the IRS check into some high earners and their carefully prepared returns is just an ordinary official act and covered by immunity. Go do it. NOW.
cain
@bcwbcw:
Actually sue the SCOTUS and then ask if official duty includes removal of SCOTUS judges.
I know Joe won’t do it, but he just order their removal and say he talked to the attorney general as an official act.
The SCOTUS knows Joe won’t do anything – but I wonder if they trust Trump?
Ramalama
@Eolirin: Vermont is not die-hard progressive is all I meant. Very different than Massholes in Massachusetts. Bernie Sanders, at one point, had a great rating from the NRA. Lots of folks there have a Keep Guvinmint out of my Business attitude. Somewhat different than New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die
Gloria DryGarden
@Kelly: my mom went down that path.
im sorry.
JaySinWA
@TBone: A cautionary tale about weapons and training. Learning from Navy Seal suicides.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/30/what-you-dont-know-can-kill-you-2/
Apparently long term exposure to the blast back from weapons you fire can cause brain damage.
If true it would explain a lot of behavior from ex Navy Seals.
Betsy
@Eolirin: fascism is nihilism. They love chaos and desire death.
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: While the small state advantage is undemocratic, it’s actually NOT the main thing that gives Democrats a structural disadvantage. That’s the overwhelming dependence of power on the slim majorities in large purple states. Republicans happen to hold most of these and have for a while.
It took me way too long to understand that.
taumaturgogo
I read a lot of hand wringing at the ever-increasing possibility of a civil war. IMO, it won’t officially be a civil war but a pogrom against liberals mainly and anyone who opposes magas. But not to worry, a small thing called climate change will get to most of us sooner than later. Cheers.
Gloria DryGarden
@cain:
I began to imagine, visualize, a coalition of lawyers and advisors who prepare some salient and effective recommendations for joe. To move the needle in a well-thought-out way.
perhaps, since Joe B listens to advisors and has teams of experts all around him, perhaps he Will do something.
I’m pretty sure there might be folks putting together some deeply useful suggestions, for what he might accomplish via executive order.
lighting another candle,
Gloria A.
The Truffle
@West of the Rockies:
At this point I’m not talking about fighting but about survival.
Keep in mind there are plenty of right wingers who want national divorce. Texas (one of the most conservative states in the union) has secession in the state’s GOP platform.
Maybe we should start GoFundMe pages to help marginalized people in red states relocate? Because I think we are looking at a split into two or more nations.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
13% of U.S. households had no phone in the home at all in 1970 (.pdf).
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, exactly, and it’s beginning to change a little, in a way that, if it continues, will end their ability to reliably hold the Senate, though we’ll not have more than a one or two seat margin most of the time.
MI has a democratic trifecta, PA is close, WI has space to make gains now that their maps have been thrown out, AZ’s executive branch is all blue (for now at least), etc. We lost ground in NC unfortunately, with the loss of state Supreme Court, and haven’t made as much progress in Georgia, but if trends continue we might be able to make more inroads in both. If we can do that and lock down Nevada better, we have a pretty decent path to 50.
That’s assuming we can get through the next few cycles.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Truffle:
I would suggest reading this thread.
TBone
@JaySinWA: my friend is a Marine but point taken. I’ll wear earplugs as I do at the gun range. Not the Halliburton ones, real protection.
I know you were referencing blast but I kick like a stubborn, old mule anyway.
I am hard headed, obvs.
We used to set up cast iron frying pans rolling across the yard on a clothesline on pulleys for target practice. I want one to use upside Dotard’s ugly pumpkin.
bluefoot
@wenchacha: I’m late to this thread but a friend whose family lived – well some of them lived – through Nazi Germany said to me that basically if the USA becomes a fascist country, there is no place safe. Between the US dollar’s role in global economy and the size and reach of our military, no place will be safe in the long run.
Eolirin
@bluefoot: Yeah. We really can’t afford to lose here.
bluefoot
@FDRLincoln:
I hear you on this. I think the only thing to do is to decide where your lines are – how much will you be a bystander in order to keep those you love out of the line of fire, and at what point is that not worth it?
Everyone can still work toward the greater good in whatever capacity they can and treat others decently. We have to keep fighting because even if the worst happens, everything we do now will make it a less onerous lift to fix things and rebuild later.
Easy for me to say – as an outspoken middle-aged, non-Christian, woman of color with mixed race and transgender family, I am under no illusion that if the worst comes to pass that I will live very long. So I might as well stand up and *make them* beat me down.
2liberal
how can dark brandon weaponize this?
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: For most of us, the personal danger presented by having a gun still likely outweighs any utility we’re likely to get from it. I think that thinking that way is falling into a basically right-wing framing of how power and violence work– some version of the fantasy of shooting home invaders, just with the skin colors changed.
TBone
@bluefoot: ✊ heart of a lion
TBone
@2liberal: ❤️ one hopes, in every possible way to our collective good.
TBone
Man, when my fugue state wears off, I dunno…
I’m really angry.
Moar weed.
bluefoot
@E.:
J Galt Property Management? WTAF?!?
I hear you: I am 57 and was laid off last fall. No new job yet. As a person of color, I expect things will get a lot worse for me before/if they get better, no matter who wins in November because a large percentage of the country just wants their unbridled ids satisfied and people like me hurt worse than they are.
bluefoot
@TBone:
Even if I die on the literal barricades, my hope is that I will do it protecting someone else who can carry on and LIVE as a FULL HUMAN BEING in a country that fosters that.
The entire fucking point of civilization is to maximize who we are as human beings in all its complexity, and the entire point of equal protection and application of the rule of law is to protect and foster that ability to be full humans. That’s what I believe, anyway. And I will live and if need be die for that.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
Re comms, I’d suggest having one or more unused or very lightly used relatively anonymous email accounts (e.g. protonmail, and anonymous can be done but requires(bare min) a burner phone and Tor), and a couple of end-to-end-encryption smartphone apps; Signal and WhatsApp seem to be best currently. (Signal is more security-focused). And set up a communication network of friends, and maybe a small encrypted group.
The Truffle
@Omnes Omnibus: I can’t read it—some sort of block chain. What does it say?
Chris Johnson
@West of the Rockies: You’re forgetting 1972.
McGovern ran against Nixon. And swapped out Tom Eagleton at the last minute because they’d not vetted him enough.
And fucking lost, and we got Nixon.
History rhymes.
This is not that complicated.
Chris Johnson
@cain: Amy Coney Barrett now cannot trust Trump. She’s crossed him. He’ll have her killed.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Truffle: It is a Twitter thread. The first post reads: I am not sure what y’all learned from the Civil Rights movement but, personally, one thing I learned is that you never stop fighting. Come back to me when we’re living in Jim Crow conditions. Until then, do not disrespect what those folks did by saying you can no longer fight.
TBone
@bluefoot: me too. I’m in your brigade. I will fight to the death. If I go down doing so, I’m damn sure not going alone.
I’m old and chronically ill. Not too old or ill to fight like hell though. I don’t have children to worry about. Put me on the front line. IDGAF
They’ve already crashed through the gates.
I fucking hate Nazis to the core of my being.
Glidwrith
@Baud: There would be civil war because while the Thugs control government, they won’t control the culture. The MAGAts will take it upon themselves to go out and murder any minority or woman who crosses or criticizes them. We will not stand for that and there’s your war.
TBone
@Bill Arnold: I’ll be doing my comms in person only. Not carrying a personal tracker around with me (cell phone).
TheTruffle
@Omnes Omnibus: I dunno–I am reminded of a quote from WC Fields: “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.”
We have two parties and one wants the other dead.
We have two Americas that have proven they can’t co-exist.
Maybe it’s time to start GoFundMe pages so that marginalized groups can get the hell out of Red State America. That way, in case civil war happens, they’re safe.
I know this sounds extreme, but I’ve been thinking the best future we can think of for the US is an amicable national divorce.
bluefoot
@TBone: I am with you on this. I don’t have kids but I have a lot of nephews, nieces and niblings, and many people I love. I want them to be able to live a better life. When I start freaking out again or doubting what to do, remind me that the cause is just and everything we do will help in the long run.
TBone
@bluefoot: you got it, my friend!
brantl
Tell it to the Native Americans that were on The Trail of Tears.
LanceThruster
Joseph Heller observed that, “Catch-22 means that people have the right to do to you anything that you cannot prevent them from doing to you.”
That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
TheTruffle
@lowtechcyclist: That’s probably what they want.
They’re the ones who blab that this is a republic, not a democracy
And it doesn’t occur to them that red states are being propped up by blue states.
Boy, are they in for a rude awakening.
LanceThruster
@brantl: Indeed. And for the checks and balances the founders sought to provide to work, they have to be applied. Having them applied in a partisan fashion if at all demonstrates that changes to the party power dynamic can/will result in those using any means to achieve their desired ends.
sab
@Baud: Agreed.
When I graduated from law school, Administrative Procedures Act was old and established. A first year law school class as I rememember. One of the basic courses.
Chevron came 5 years later and just gave deference to federal agencies’ decisions in litigation. ( They have experts in the field. Courts just have lawyers.)
This case, with the new extended statute of limitations, seems to have upended not only Chevron case but the APA itself. Am I right?
Skippy-san
@jimmiraybob: See Texas 1848
Skippy-san
@RaflW: And don’t forget, we have a military that is no longer a cross section of US population. When Trump throws Posse Comitatus out the window ( and he will) and orders the military to shoot protestors, the soldiers will obey an illegal and immoral order.
There will be no restraining voices in DOD thanks to Project 2025.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: After McGovern showed he was a bad executive by firing his VP pick after picking him.
I loved McGovern a lot and worked my ass off on his campaign, but he should have stood by Eagleton or not picked him to begin with.
He just looked weak and indecisive, and also disloyal.
( One of my my big regrets in life is not sending him a post election fan letter. He was heartbroken by having failed us. I am a lifelong Democrat from a Republican family because he inspired me.)
sab
@TBone: In defense of Garland, I don’t know who is the responsible jurist for this moment when the Supreme Court has lost its mind or at least its legal bearings.
jimmiraybob
@brantl:
“Tell it to the Native Americans that were on The Trail of Tears.”
Isn’t Andrew Jackson Trump’s favorite president?
TBone
@sab: I wasn’t entirely knocking him, I was being sassy in response to this at #281
I don’t know the answer to how to maintain an independent DOJ in the face of this bold faced, frontal attack either!