People really are not cognizing just how bad this is, once you get past the headlines.
Assertion of some narrow immunity that might have somewhat helped Donald Trump in his current legal travails would be one thing.
This is a profound short-circuit of any form of executive accountability. I am simply terrified, at a very personal level.
screenshotted quote from #QuinHillyer https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/3066424/supreme-court-grants-trump-a-malignant-degree-of-immunity/
Text: Barrett, in the middle, wrote the single most concisely cogent line of all: “Properly conceived, the president’s constitutional protection for prosecution is narrow.” And in the part of her opinion that dissents from the main holding, she absolutely blasted Roberts’s truly bizarre, entirely untextual conclusion that even if a president is being tried for conduct outside the very “outer” bounds of presidential authority, prosecutors can’t discuss conduct for which he is immune as part of the evidence in their case. If the president is being charged with bribery, for example, then, of course, the jury should be told what “official act” it was for which the bribe was paid. “To make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo,” she wrote, “the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo.” (ltalics are Barrett’s.) Under Roberts’s astonishingly grandiose assertion of presidential immunity, a jury would be denied that basic information.
@kentwillard they are, if they continually elect incumbents. turn-taking is non-negotiable if you want any governance system that is not the mere oppression of some factions by others. the US two-term limit is fantastic, or at least it was while Presidents still had to respect it.
@Hyolobrika they've made the President immune from prosecution for any and everything that might colorably be described as an "official act". so, if a President were to unilaterally declare that, due to say a pandemic, any Federal election must be delayed, and orders enforcement of that edict, even if courts agree it would be illegal, he could not be prosecuted, while President, or after (if there is any after). an official act can be illegal still, but the President can't be prosecuted.
@realcaseyrollins our government is doing fine. our Supreme Court has torn away the guard rails that help insist it will continue to do so.
If the Supreme Court has legalized tyranny, is it dumb to risk holding an election and giving their guy the opportunity to indefinitely suspend them when your guy has the scepter and the opportunity now?
This is the kind of dilemma the Supreme Court has just interpreted into the US Constitution.
No windows were broken in the US Capitol. But today was the coup. The rest is just events, unless we dethrone this court and reverse today's madness soon.
"The incredibly cynical and lawless two-step the Republican Party engaged in — Trump shouldn’t be impeached because he can be prosecuted, and he can’t be prosecuted because he could have been impeached — has been enshrined into 'constitutional law.'" #ScottLemieux https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/07/john-roberts-and-the-republicans-on-the-trump-court-massively-fail-the-test-even-warren-burger-was-able-to-pass
@rst i'm fine with it, love the symbolism! but it's unlikely to succeed. remedying Constitutionalized immunity claims will require a Supreme Court reversal (which can happen if we reform the Court!) or an Amendment.
but lots of the shit this court has done can be remedied by statute. Codify Chevron deference as Congressional intent, explicitly ban gratuities.
Can Democrats run on codifying the criminalization of any substantial gratuity to public officials at every level please?
I mean, this stuff is too basic even for Schoolhouse Rock.
who presides over a trial in the Senate subsequent to an impeachment when it's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who has been impeached?
Plutocracy is an equilibrium.
Once who plutocrats pay determines who gets to be affluent—indirectly of course, via sinecures or lobbyists on "philanthropic research organizations"—politicians have to legalize getting paid (as the Supreme Court just did for "gratuities") or be left behind.
Govt action becomes a market good, like all market goods, subject to appropri8n at will by plutocrats, except when other plutocrats bid in competition.
Plutocrats share an interest in entrenching plutocracy.
you have to own the mistakes you make even by following someone else's advice.
in ten years the word “automate” will most commonly be a noun, referring to a product whose immense popularity is somewhat bittersweet.
In 2016, the political science book you couldn't stop hearing about was "The Party Decides".
In 2024, the political science book you can't stop hearing about is "The Hollow Parties".
@kentwillard I guess I think getting Manchin on-board with IRA after he tanked BBB, getting Eric McCarthy to join a debt-ceiling deal that (unintentionally of the Biden Administration) became his political death warrant, getting Mike Johnson to authorize Ukraine aid despite very credible threats to his career for acceding all go way beyond deference to trusted experts. Different people for sure, but similarly ambitious and vain people. And here, there really is a lot more mutual interest.
@kentwillard i'm in the weird position of having more faith in this administration than most people. somehow these people overcame a ridiculously bad hand during debt-ceiling "negotiations", turned humiliation over build-back-better into the most important climate change legislation in history, got Ukraine aid done (shamefully, consequentially late!) despite Trumpist sabotage. if they can negotiate all this, surely they can negotiate a right thing among high-ranking Democrats, including Harris.
suddenly, i have ads from Gretchen Whitmer on the horrorsite. i don’t recall seeing those before.
the most amusing scenario is Biden drops out and endorses New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
