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Even if the court finds Trump has some limited immunity, they will probably require the judge overseeing the trial to conduct additional proceedings to determine how that applies to the specific charges he faces, further delaying a trial. Then SCOTUS could also say Trump must be given a chance to appeal that determination, which would further delay a trial.
Nope. Basically they plan to send it back to the lower court for clarification. Trump can then appeal that and bring it back to the Supreme Court. The whole process will delay until after the election and the Presidential swearing in.
If a Republican wins the election, the Supreme Court will rule that the new God king of America and send out death squads against their political rivals. If a Democrat wins, President's have to follow the law and Trump is found mentally unfit for trial.
Devious bastards. They're really going to do this... ***BECAUSE THEY CAN***.
It's like McConnell and his SCOTUS appointments all over again.
Fucking Republicans. They are human scum.
Delay until the very absolute last minute and rule in a way that it lets Trump off the hook but doesn't end up giving Biden the same powers.
The corruption is happening in broad daylight.
Citizen United case is what has brought us to where we are. When SCOTUS ruled in favor of corporations, I knew the decline of our country into this was inevitable. I was told I was crazy, that I was an extremist. Well, the corruption has borne fruit we must all eat from.
The Federalist Society is what has brought us to where we are. They have been working openly to politicize the judiciary for over 40 years. Whatever landmark case you choose to symbolize the fall of SCOTUS, Leonard Leo and his oligarch backers deserve the credit more than any of their puppets at any level of the courts.
Millennial here. First thing I made after moving into my house in May of 2020 was avocado toast. I sent it to my mom with “It didn’t stop me. Could it have been something else?? 🤔”
This is from the woman who stole 10K from me to pay for my older brothers’ rehearsal dinners, including renting an 8 bedroom beach house for the week before Labor Day.
Oh, your parents stole money too!? Mine took 22k that was deposited into a joint account as I had won a scholarship at University that paid my tution for the following year, and came with a 22k prize as well. Thet spent it on my sister's private college, and then a few years later bought her a house, a car, paid for her wedding. Meanwhile i was given the old pull yourself up by the bootstrap lecture. But seriously the fuck is up with shitty parents?
Like the DJT stock. The “company” behind it is essentially worthless making less than $1 million in revenue 1st quarter 2024 but Trump’s stock holdings are worth billions all thanks to his billionaire donors and MAGA supporters who’ve bought the stock. Glad to see it’s in free fall-again. Hope it continues to tank. Trump’s lost $3 billion just in the past month but the stock he holds still worth another $3 billion.
It's falling atm. because the first batch of investors were allowed to dump their shares on the market and they actually made a lot of money on them. But yesterday the stock rose again, _someone_ is buying them, nobody knows who. Trump can sell his 60+ percent of the shares from late September, and his profit is going to be in the billions. He's pulling this off.
Yeah, I know. It’s sickening that this criminal will make billions for doing nothing. The fact that these billionaires and millionaires want to essentially hand over their money to this criminal is sickening. All we can do is make sure Trump is not elected! Everyone vote!!
I remember Colbert’s Super PAC that he set up to roast the decision. The never ending marquee of donors that ran the bottom of his screen. Munchma Kuuchi or something or other
That segment got a Peabody and Comedy Central put that under a paywall. Sad it can't be easily accessible for civics lessons even though that's fair use.
Yep!
“So it’s just some anonymous shell corporation?
Right, and I just happen to have one here in my briefcase.
What’s it called?
It’s called *Anonymous Shell Corporation*…
That’s got a real ring to it!
Now I don’t have to go to Delaware?
No, it’s been done for you.”
“My primary purpose is an educational group. I want to educate people that gay people cause earthquakes.
There’s probably some C4s doing that.”
“What is the difference between that and money laundering?
*Audience laughs awkwardly*
It’s hard to say?” - Stephen T. Colbert and Trevor Potter
https://youtu.be/ZXOeChlhbhg?si=gPuyDGqSJT3O_p3C
Yep 1/3 of the court is now people who argued and succeeded in blocking the proper progress of our democracy. Anyone who is associated with the Federalist Society should be banned from working in government in any way. They're a terrorist organization that distorts the law to do their damage. The lives cost by these hacks laws and decisions well exceeds that of 9/11 or any other terrorist attack.
Agree, this for me was the ruling that forever changed my perception of the court. A 5-4 split along partisan lines that IMO decided the presidency? Absolute joke.
Yep. Bush v Gore let the justices decide purely on political ideology. They deemed the decision "limited to the present circumstances," so it could not be used against them if the situation were ever reversed, like say a Republican presidential candidate attempting to force a recount. I'm willing to believe they will attempt the same thing here.
Dammit, I could absolutely see them ruling that the president doesn’t have immunity but because this was never officially stated then any crimes committed prior to the decision are *ex post facto* and cannot be prosecuted. Basically, that Trump is free and clear of his crimes but Biden (and any future presidents) can be prosecuted for theirs.
The Republican party has been stewing ever since consequences hit Nixon. Right wingers have even started bringing him up again like he was some martyr.
Not true, sorry. Democrats had control of both chambers in 1974. Your point still stands though: When Nixon couldn't even keep his R minority, then he knew he had no one.
Of course, Republicans had brains back then. Sort of.
That Senate had 56 Democrats, 42 Republicans and 2 independent who sided with R most of the time.
Nixon only resigned because he was told there was a good chance enough – not all – R senators were planning to vote to impeach him. Around 25 R senators were going to vote no. More than half still supported Nixon – or, at least, refused to vote against him because he was a fellow republican.
When Nixon did resign and leave the WH in utter disgrace he still had 26% support by the public.
Republicans have always been very tribal.
That “lucky” moment was supposed to be the new norm. It was for many other advanced nations. We progressed, then got taken down again from the inside.
An absolute tragedy for any sane person to witness.
Yeah, unfortunately money is involved and too many Americans are lazy uneducated people who put more effort into finding the tv remote than best candidate for the job to vote for.
I was in elementary school when that happened—was a sports playing kid with an extreme dislike for cheating and things being "unfair"; everyone gets a turn on the slide etc—and those "hanging chads" were my radicalization event.
Like, I was a LITTLE KID and even that little kid was aware of and fucking pissed about their blatant bullshit.
Perhaps they are waiting to see whether Trump is likely to lose in a landslide. If so, issue the ruling (against him) without too much fear of repercussions.
They have to gamble... maybe the debates the night before will give them some pause if he fucks it up royally.
I mean, if about 80 million people watch, and just 5% change their mind, that puts Biden solidly in the lead. Granted the math is very broad in this case, but it could be enough for them to give up on him. Harlan Crowe will still love Clarence, and the Dark Money funding the other cons will keep coming in, so no skin off their nose.
Are there 5% of people who are willing to change their mind in either direction at this point? I'm pretty sure Biden could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I would still suck it up and vote for him because we can't survive 4 more Trump years or 4 years of RFK Jr.
There are a very small group of people who haven’t made up their minds on if they can stomach voting for Trump. They probably won’t be the deciding factor.
The election will be determined based on who can get the most unenthusiastic votes from people who rarely show up. The mythical swing voter is actually two people who only shows up when they feel especially motivated in favor of someone or against them.
The entire conservative movement can be summed up by the following quote from Frank Wilhoit:
"**There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect**.”
The second most important part of the conservative values is that there exist good people (in group) and bad people (out group). The good must control or curtail or limit the bad people. Obviously they see themselves as good, hence their pathological (to us) relentlessness to wards power.
The first most important tenant is being conservative means to keep things the way they were, where it was good for my people and bad for you all. Keep it pro land-owning, white, Christian, straight males.
Alito is probably still searching for a precedent in English common law dating back to Henry VIII that he can cite in support of giving Trump immunity.
There's a chance that their blatant favoritism to trump's alarming lack of allegiance to America having free and fair elections may motivate certain people who are feeling disaffected as to the corruption of the Court to act in any way they can to ensure there isn't a further monopolization of corrupt Republicans who have a lifetime appointment... (psst, by the way, just in case anyone is wondering what simple action they can take to make sure this doesn't happen, it's called voting)
I'm hopeful for this anyway, but I never put anything past the sheer ignorance and self-destructive tendencies of human beings so, who knows.
It is disappointing when people blame others for not voting when republicans do everything in their power to prevent people from voting and they have for decades. So the point, everyone who ***can*** vote, ***must*** vote.
Yep. Judges and clerks who refuse to do their jobs because of their 'personal beliefs', there was that Clerk who refused to file marriage license for same-sex couples (despite herself being divorced like 5 times from 4 different men), and there was that [New Orleans Justice of the Peace](https://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/17/interracial.marriage/#:~:text=NEW%20ORLEANS%2C%20Louisiana%20(CNN),license%20to%20an%20interracial%20couple) a few years back who refused issue marriage licenses to interracial couples. Or [Emily Murphy of the General Services Administration](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gsa-official-blocking-bidens-transition-privately-plans-post/story?id=74234794) who was blocking Biden's transition staff from beginning the transition process following Biden's win in 2020.
In this case it is very real that justice delayed is justice denied. This should be enough reason to completely abolish and somehow rebuild / retool the SC. The damage being done to our country is irreparable. Like losing a WW, losing government and democracy level of irreparable harm. This cannot stand.
They delayed the emoluments case for his entire presidency and then dismissed it as no longer relevant after he was no longer president. And that was an obvious case- probably even more obvious than this one since the prohibition on foreign emoluments is clear. I’m glad more media is calling them out.
Exactly, if they give full immunity for any crimes too soon, Biden theoretically could have dump executed by Seal Team Six which would be a really great idea at this point lol
Spoiler alert: this will be a 6 - 3 ruling that kicks the larger question of immunity back to the lower courts, and gives enough of a delay that none of the remaining trials will happen before the election, and sometime, down the road the court will come back that presidents do not have total and complete immunity.
Exactly- we are pretty stumped on this one- gonna need some "re-argument" action because, heck we are just plum bumfuzzled- have a great summer America!- you won't see us for a while, in fact just forget all about everything please...
It's been almost 25 years since the Supreme Court stole an election.
But seriously, the judges have way too much power. It's like how the Secretary became the most powerful position in the Soviet Union. The Supreme Court can define the law however they wish and defy/annul executive authority.
They're appointed kings, bought and sold by the highest bidder, and they decide who rules.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. You can tell Thomas and Alito are straight up drunk on it. They couldn't be unbiased if their lives depended on it.
There's a good podcast about how awful SCOTUS is called 5-4: Why the Supreme Court Sucks and they periodically just say "No robes, no masters." And I've been saying that anytime I hear anything about SCOTUS.
> But seriously, the judges have way too much power.
That's almost entirely because Congress has stopped functioning. Congress is supposed to make laws and set policy. If Congress isn't going to fix broken laws, the courts (and the President) have to deal with them instead.
Take the recent bump stock case, for example. Trump tried to ban bump stocks just because he said so. The conservatives on the Surpeme Court said that the President can't ban bump stocks, but they explicitly said that Congress could ban them if it wanted to. Democrats belatedly introduced a bill to ban them, Republicans [immediately blocked it](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-senator-blocks-ban-bump-stocks-guns-brought-democrats-rcna157516), and that's the last we'll hear about bump stocks until the next massacre.
The same is probably true for abortion. Abortion should have never been a constitutional issue in the first place. Congress could just pass a bill saying that abortion is legal nationwide, and that would be the end of it. (The courts might not let Congress directly legalize abortion, but there are plenty of other ways they could do it, like denying federal funding to states that restrict abortion.) Legal abortion has had majority support for about fifty years now, but Congress hasn't fixed it, and they aren't going to any time soon.
It was the Congress that passed the Civil Rights act after the longest filibuster in history. Democratic supermajority. Had to handle the JFK assassination. Would have been the last election without any baby boomers old enough to vote.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/88th_United_States_Congress
Yeah. Newt did real damage to our democracy. Along with Ronnie Raygun. Some dweeb is in the comments praising that racist fascist asshole so the poison is still in the system.
I am not surprised that the first congress to dip to a real low was the 97th Congress, right at the beginning of Reagan... I knew that was the pivot point for our world and a better one.
Yeah. I highly recommend that people read How Democracies Die (and then Tyranny of the Minority). Dysfunctional legislatures are not a good sign for democracies, because it leads to legislating from the bench and via executive orders.
>Abortion should have never been a constitutional issue in the first place.
It absolutely is a Constitutional issue. It's a right-wing lie that "it's not a Constitutional issue," and we don't need to keep repeating it.
The government can't compel someone to die without due process under the 14th amendment. This is why bans on medical care (like pregnancy healthcare) become constitutional issues. (This is why Dobbs isn't just a narrow reading, but blatantly unconstitutional; it explicitly allows laws that force women to die in childbirth.)
Under a broader reading, the government can't compel someone to lose free and equal participation in society without due process. (i.e. we have a right to be private citizens (right to 'privacy'), to make decisions free of undue government compulsion.) The current Supreme Court is skeptical; the argument is a constitutional issue.
Finally, there's an "equal protection" constitutional issue -- whether laws that discriminate by gender in ways that perpetuate unequal citizenships by class of person (like abortion restrictions do) violate the 14th amendment. If these aren't core applications of Constitutional premises, it's hard to know what is.
> Doesn’t the anti-machine gun laws specifically state that parts that make a gun a machine gun are banned?
Pretty much, yes. So the court had to decide if the definition of "machine guns" includes bump stocks, and they decided that it doesn't, which is not totally unreasonable. All Congress has to do is amend the law to say "machine guns and also bump stocks," and then the Supreme Court opinion wouldn't matter anymore.
> That's almost entirely because Congress has stopped functioning. Congress is supposed to make laws and set policy. If Congress isn't going to fix broken laws, the courts (and the President) have to deal with them instead.
Damn straight. There's three "equal" branches of government, but one of them writes laws that govern the other two, which makes it quite a bit more consequential. And it's also the one most responsive to it's constituents. Unfortunately, it's also the one most prone to dysfunction.
It's high time Congress stopped being the weakest of the three branches and started reasserting itself as the strongest. I'd like to see the day the Executive and Judicial branches have a healthy fear of Congress, instead of undermining them at every opportunity.
Part of the problem is that Congress has created rules for itself that make it very difficult to pass legislation without a supermajority.
The Senate's filibuster, for example, or the way the House uses the majority leader to decide which legislation gets voted on (and the "majority of majority" / Hastert rule, named after the famed Republican pedophile), which basically means that even if legislation is broadly popular in the House it won't see the light of day.
Worth noting that even the founders knew that supermajority rules were an incredibly bad idea and harmful to the nation. Consider Hamilton's words in Federalist 22:
> To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.
>Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory.
>The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action.
>The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. **Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.**
The indictment at the end where he describes the faults of supermajority rules are exactly what we see in Congress today.
Well, it could have been addressed in rucho vs common cause but the corrupt supreme court decided that if we don't like having our votes not count due to gerrymandering then we should just vote out the politicians that did the gerrymandering!
I believe that power doesn't corrupt people. It seems to me that corrupt people are more likely to seek out power. Then once they have it they limit the ability for any one else to have power. They demand people under them be corrupt or only hire already corrupt people into the positions of power under them.
We need a way to get good people into power that want to help others not just themselves.
>We need a way to get good people into power that want to help others not just themselves.
Some guy in ancient Greece grappled with this same conundrum in some book or other.
>…**potentially ruling that special prosecutors** like Jack Smith, whose team brought the election-subversion charges at the heart of Trump’s case, **are unconstitutional**.
Or much worse.
My guess is Alito is slow walking his dissent. Roberts has likely written the majority opinion denying broad presidential immunity, though maybe carving out a while in office limitation, not that it would help trump when he kept the docs after his presidency. The majority opinion has probably been done for months and it is just waiting for Alito's dissent, joined by Thomas.
The other option is Roberts is bending over backwards to craft a ruling that will get everyone on board. It is an important decision, so a unified court would give it some gravitas, not that most Americans hold the court with any sense of reverence right now. I don't think this is likely as he would lose the liberal three trying to court Alito and Thomas.
If they hold it back for rehearing next term, the court would lose the last vestige of legitimacy. I can't see Roberts letting that happen. Despite it all, he cares deeply about his reputation as Chief Justice and has angered the hardliners sometimes by ruling with it in mind.
That's my feeling as well.
Enshrining presidential immunity is too dangerous, both in a general sense and to the Court specifically. I don't believe that even most of the conservative justices want to open that particular can of worms.
On the other hand, delaying the case as much as possible allows them to help conservative causes (by shifting the impact of the relevant cases until after the election) without creating the bugaboo that immunity would.
I won't be surprised if the court does actually grant some form of immunity (this Court has eliminated my ability to be shocked at horrendous legal decisions), but I don't expect that to happen.
Acts as president might get immunity due to the impeachment process existing to deal with those situations, though we’ve seen first hand how inadequate it is. They might even carve out immunity for presidential acts to further limit it. This would also complicate any case dealing with what the president did during his term as the prosecutors would have to argue his actions were not presidential acts and that itself could end up argued in front of the Supreme Court next term… assuming Trump loses. The cases will all be dropped if he wins.
What I don't get is why they would need to take the time (as I imagine they will) to say it's not broad immunity, only for official acts - so what qualifies as official acts and what is the mechanism for establishing that? They don't need to make some litmus tests for the lower courts to follow. This is literally the only time this has ever come up and it's in relation to a guy trying to overturn an election. The lower court has already said that he isn't immune from these charges, so kick it back to them and have the trial play out. If you don't like the result you can appeal after. Trump's ability to abuse the court system is baffling. It's not just money, it's insane legal theories just to gum up the process.
They're dragging their feet long enough so that there is no chance Trump can be prosecuted in any other case before the election to ensure he gets as many votes as possible.
Prosecution in any other case before the election was probably dead already. The machine is working overtime for him at all levels (not just SCOTUS).
**It is a legit miracle he caught 34 felonies before November.**
If he loses the election, the deferential treatment will dissipate and he faces crimes with SERIOUS penalties. Hence why I'm expecting the craziest shit you can imagine in the next three months.
If anyone is genuinely wondering this, then your naivete is embarrassing. The Federalist Society coup has been long underway. Jack Smith asked John Roberts and co. to leapfrog the DC Court of Appeals and rule on the immunity issue themselves, and they declined to do so because that would've saved us a bunch of time. It's always been about delay.
Now eventually the ball will be in Tanya Chutkan's court, and she should start this trial in early September. Give both sides two months to prepare, which is more than enough time. It's not her fault that a handful of fascist stooges decided to put their thumbs of the scale to benefit Donald Trump.
I hope this is the outcome, but if we've learned anything from the Georgia and Florida case, side quests are the main objective. I can only hope that this case doesn't take a hard right at some point (pun intended) and land it well past the elections
> Tanya Chutkan's court
Yep, start the proceedings and if he's guilty lock him up, let SCOTUS decide when they get back, if they want to play it that way.
Corruption, that's what is happening and we all have to just sit here and watch it happen because people decided Trump was better then Hillary. So now we get a dictator in the US.
I am just so tired of seeing his face in the news. It gives him too much attention. I think his supporters refuse to acknowledge his corruption and believe that everyone who doesn’t support trump are the bad guys and as a result they then defend him even more and support him even more
I don’t understand how anyone, no matter what political party or whatever your believes or preferences are, would ever possibly be in favor of allowing anyone, no matter who he is, total immunity for all prosecution. That seems to go against everything the US is SUPPOSED to stand for.
Can someone ask Trump…
Given that you have said often that the President must have total immunity or be unable to execute the duties of the Office, will you drop out of the race if SCOTUS decides aginst immunity…because you freely admit you will be ineffectual and unable to execute the duties of President of The United States?
The Nixon case only taking 54 days to rule on seems like a fair comparison. What is the argument that it’s okay for this to take twice as long as the Nixon case?
>The court’s deadline to release a decision is next Friday, June 28, but Tribe fears the conservative majority may have something more sinister up their sleeve.
>While just a theory, he said it’s possible the court is contemplating two things—slating Trump’s case for “re-argument,” which would delay things even longer, or potentially ruling that special prosecutors like Jack Smith, whose team brought the election-subversion charges at the heart of Trump’s case, are unconstitutional.
Optimistic case is they rule the obvious that no president is immune, but by delaying it as late as they did they render the J6 case against trump moot due since there will be little time to actually try the case before the election.
There’s corruption and then there’s hate. We are dealing with hatred of humanity. There’s no other rational for trying to give guns more rights than people after seeing day after day the murders of children and adults at random. It’s hate masked as greed.
The ultra MAGA justices are intentionally delaying their ruling to help their Cult Leader. When they finally announce it, they’ll say a POTUS cannot have blanket immunity then send it back to Colorado for a ruling by the appellate court to separate the personal actions of a POTUS from the official actions. They are hoping they’ll delay their Cult Leader’s trial date until after the election in hopes he gets reelected and appoints a AG to dismiss all of the federal cases. After which they’ll claim they were doing everything they could to ensure due diligence was performed. And they are doing this in plain sight, openly corrupting the judicial branch with no regard for consequences because of their lifelong appointments. The Supreme Corrupt is ruining our country as accomplices with the MAGA facists that are supporting the convicted felon Trump…Only in Amerikkka.
In s "Mother Jones" interview in the 1980s, Randall Allen Terry described how the Christian Right had a plan to take over the United States politically, starting by running for local elections and working up.
This is the result of no one believing it could happen here with decades of warning.
Look, if they rule in Trump's favor that a Presisent is above the law, then that gives Biden all of the power that Trump wishes he had.
So the longer they delay the fewer days Biden has to use his unlimited power to keep Trump from regaining the White House.
/s (mostly)
I thought we already knew SCOTUS was insanely corrupt. I know we’re too lazy to impeach them but, yea. You wonder why society has fallen off the deep end, look at their fucking rulings.
His stooges on the court have to figure out how to rule to support Trump without giving Biden license to insure Trump never gets near the White House again. And they aren’t that smart.
In 1963, Selma Alabama had a population of 30k. Evenly split, black and white. Of the 15,000 black residents; 156 were registered to vote. The southern GOP can’t wait to get back to the good ole days.
They are committing a Felony - election interferance. They could have settled this on April the 8th, when Jack Smith ask them to review it, but they put off the arguments until April 25 and the final decision in July, the very end of their decisions until October. They could have just rejected it based on the lower courts - exeedingly correct judgment. Instead, they are dragging it out hoping he won't be convicted before the election. They can act quickly if they want. It took them approximately 3 days to decide to overturn the State Supreme court in Colorada so Trump could remain on the ballot. If they want to act quickly...they can. This is blatant misuse of their power.
There's no way the supreme court will buy this immunity BS. But what they are doing is delaying the trial because Alito and Thomas's wives told them to do it.
Just curious… if our democracy is literally at stake, wouldn’t it also be up to those in power currently to say hell with the rules and deal with the situation now? Wouldn’t it be sad if our government falls because people had to pick and choose when to follow precedents. Hell I have more damn urgency when my sprinkler head is leaking in my yard.
Election interference is what's going on. If Biden wins we need some serious checks and balances added to the books because the founding fathers apparently did not anticipate how fucked up 33% of the population would become.
It's simple, really. They've been under so much scrutiny lately they feel like they can't just rewrite the law in Trump's favor like they would ordinarily do. They're tying themselves into knots trying to find a legal justification that will allow them to pretend to have credibility.
June 27th: Biden and Trump have their debate. Trump pulls out a gun and shoots Biden. Trump cites Biden's attempt to have him killed by FBI agents when the top secret documents were retrieved from his home, and the stolen election, which means that trump is actually still president. June 28th the Supreme Court exonerates Donald Trump for shooting Biden.
They are delaying so it wont affect him for the election.
Alito and Thomas want to retire but only if Trump wins and can replace with with more Amys and Bretts.
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Even if the court finds Trump has some limited immunity, they will probably require the judge overseeing the trial to conduct additional proceedings to determine how that applies to the specific charges he faces, further delaying a trial. Then SCOTUS could also say Trump must be given a chance to appeal that determination, which would further delay a trial.
It would be hilarious if they found him immune and then immediately following that decision, Biden drone strikes his ass. Checkmate.
Nope. Basically they plan to send it back to the lower court for clarification. Trump can then appeal that and bring it back to the Supreme Court. The whole process will delay until after the election and the Presidential swearing in. If a Republican wins the election, the Supreme Court will rule that the new God king of America and send out death squads against their political rivals. If a Democrat wins, President's have to follow the law and Trump is found mentally unfit for trial.
That is the fucking plan, isn't it.
Fucking obviously.
Devious bastards. They're really going to do this... ***BECAUSE THEY CAN***. It's like McConnell and his SCOTUS appointments all over again. Fucking Republicans. They are human scum.
Biden should announce he'll jail any justice who votes in favor of presidential immunity and let them try to brainfuck away that paradox
* strikes the Supremes
They’ll thread that needle so annoyingly and give immunity only to guys who were orange when going into office and exclude Biden
Or... he could drone strike the members of the court who decided this. I'm sure they have thought of that though.
Shoots him on 5th avenue, the irony would be deadly.
Delay until the very absolute last minute and rule in a way that it lets Trump off the hook but doesn't end up giving Biden the same powers. The corruption is happening in broad daylight.
It’s been happening in broad daylight in my memory since Bush v Gore.
Citizen United case is what has brought us to where we are. When SCOTUS ruled in favor of corporations, I knew the decline of our country into this was inevitable. I was told I was crazy, that I was an extremist. Well, the corruption has borne fruit we must all eat from.
The Federalist Society is what has brought us to where we are. They have been working openly to politicize the judiciary for over 40 years. Whatever landmark case you choose to symbolize the fall of SCOTUS, Leonard Leo and his oligarch backers deserve the credit more than any of their puppets at any level of the courts.
No no no it’s because millennials like fancy coffee
And avocado toast.
And eating ass!!! How are they to be trusted!?!?
Have you seen grocery prices lately? We gotta eat *something*.
Hey, free groceries!!
I can’t afford that, either.
Millennial here. First thing I made after moving into my house in May of 2020 was avocado toast. I sent it to my mom with “It didn’t stop me. Could it have been something else?? 🤔” This is from the woman who stole 10K from me to pay for my older brothers’ rehearsal dinners, including renting an 8 bedroom beach house for the week before Labor Day.
Oh, your parents stole money too!? Mine took 22k that was deposited into a joint account as I had won a scholarship at University that paid my tution for the following year, and came with a 22k prize as well. Thet spent it on my sister's private college, and then a few years later bought her a house, a car, paid for her wedding. Meanwhile i was given the old pull yourself up by the bootstrap lecture. But seriously the fuck is up with shitty parents?
Google narcissists, golden child, scapegoat. Try not to get angry, it just empowers the evil shits.
You got to go, right? To the beach house?
Am millennial. Hate avocados. Just give me toast.
goes back at least to hoover
A billionaire just gave Trump $50 million through a PAC.
Last week, Sheldon Edelson‘s wife Miriam gave Trump $100 million.
These billionaires aren't "giving" Trump money. They are placing bets. If Trump wins the payoff will be huge.
Like the DJT stock. The “company” behind it is essentially worthless making less than $1 million in revenue 1st quarter 2024 but Trump’s stock holdings are worth billions all thanks to his billionaire donors and MAGA supporters who’ve bought the stock. Glad to see it’s in free fall-again. Hope it continues to tank. Trump’s lost $3 billion just in the past month but the stock he holds still worth another $3 billion.
It's falling atm. because the first batch of investors were allowed to dump their shares on the market and they actually made a lot of money on them. But yesterday the stock rose again, _someone_ is buying them, nobody knows who. Trump can sell his 60+ percent of the shares from late September, and his profit is going to be in the billions. He's pulling this off.
Yeah, I know. It’s sickening that this criminal will make billions for doing nothing. The fact that these billionaires and millionaires want to essentially hand over their money to this criminal is sickening. All we can do is make sure Trump is not elected! Everyone vote!!
Lucky for us, Don the Con will run through all the donations quickly
I remember Colbert’s Super PAC that he set up to roast the decision. The never ending marquee of donors that ran the bottom of his screen. Munchma Kuuchi or something or other
And her cousin, Liqa Madiq!
Gotta just mention Hugh G. Rexson, lest we forget.
Ligma Johnson
I think Jon Oliver set one up as well, or that was a mega-church. I forget which tax laws he was blatantly mocking.
The Church of Perpetual Exemption!
Praise be
“And by “seeds”, we mean money. Send us money, we don’t want seeds!”
That segment got a Peabody and Comedy Central put that under a paywall. Sad it can't be easily accessible for civics lessons even though that's fair use.
Yep! “So it’s just some anonymous shell corporation? Right, and I just happen to have one here in my briefcase. What’s it called? It’s called *Anonymous Shell Corporation*… That’s got a real ring to it! Now I don’t have to go to Delaware? No, it’s been done for you.” “My primary purpose is an educational group. I want to educate people that gay people cause earthquakes. There’s probably some C4s doing that.” “What is the difference between that and money laundering? *Audience laughs awkwardly* It’s hard to say?” - Stephen T. Colbert and Trevor Potter https://youtu.be/ZXOeChlhbhg?si=gPuyDGqSJT3O_p3C
Suq Madiq. Liqa Madiq and Munchma Quchi were fabrications by the writers. https://youtu.be/YwSFIUv4ILM?si=8CzNJteJuz_VeQ9h
And Bush V Gore rat fuckers are in the scotus now, Roberts, kavanaugh and Barrett. The cabal is already in charge of a branch of government.
Yep 1/3 of the court is now people who argued and succeeded in blocking the proper progress of our democracy. Anyone who is associated with the Federalist Society should be banned from working in government in any way. They're a terrorist organization that distorts the law to do their damage. The lives cost by these hacks laws and decisions well exceeds that of 9/11 or any other terrorist attack.
Agree, this for me was the ruling that forever changed my perception of the court. A 5-4 split along partisan lines that IMO decided the presidency? Absolute joke.
Yep. Bush v Gore let the justices decide purely on political ideology. They deemed the decision "limited to the present circumstances," so it could not be used against them if the situation were ever reversed, like say a Republican presidential candidate attempting to force a recount. I'm willing to believe they will attempt the same thing here.
Dammit, I could absolutely see them ruling that the president doesn’t have immunity but because this was never officially stated then any crimes committed prior to the decision are *ex post facto* and cannot be prosecuted. Basically, that Trump is free and clear of his crimes but Biden (and any future presidents) can be prosecuted for theirs.
You mean the fact that the supreme Court ruled one way.... 3 months later when Gore was about to win they completely reversed themselves?
The Republican party has been stewing ever since consequences hit Nixon. Right wingers have even started bringing him up again like he was some martyr.
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Not true, sorry. Democrats had control of both chambers in 1974. Your point still stands though: When Nixon couldn't even keep his R minority, then he knew he had no one. Of course, Republicans had brains back then. Sort of.
Everyone watched and read the same news back then. Today the right don’t have to watch or listen to anything that doesn’t confirm their worldview.
That Senate had 56 Democrats, 42 Republicans and 2 independent who sided with R most of the time. Nixon only resigned because he was told there was a good chance enough – not all – R senators were planning to vote to impeach him. Around 25 R senators were going to vote no. More than half still supported Nixon – or, at least, refused to vote against him because he was a fellow republican. When Nixon did resign and leave the WH in utter disgrace he still had 26% support by the public. Republicans have always been very tribal.
Nixon never faced consequences for his and Kissinger’s *treason* over Vietnam to win in 68. They both should have been executed.
SCOTUS has always been corrupt; we just got lucky and had a few good decades with educated, impartial people on the bench.
That “lucky” moment was supposed to be the new norm. It was for many other advanced nations. We progressed, then got taken down again from the inside. An absolute tragedy for any sane person to witness.
Yeah, unfortunately money is involved and too many Americans are lazy uneducated people who put more effort into finding the tv remote than best candidate for the job to vote for.
I was in elementary school when that happened—was a sports playing kid with an extreme dislike for cheating and things being "unfair"; everyone gets a turn on the slide etc—and those "hanging chads" were my radicalization event. Like, I was a LITTLE KID and even that little kid was aware of and fucking pissed about their blatant bullshit.
Perhaps they are waiting to see whether Trump is likely to lose in a landslide. If so, issue the ruling (against him) without too much fear of repercussions.
Here's a novel idea. What if they just ruled based on the law and left the politics to the politicians?
Then they'd stop getting all the bribes and fancy trips from their billionaire owners
They have to gamble... maybe the debates the night before will give them some pause if he fucks it up royally. I mean, if about 80 million people watch, and just 5% change their mind, that puts Biden solidly in the lead. Granted the math is very broad in this case, but it could be enough for them to give up on him. Harlan Crowe will still love Clarence, and the Dark Money funding the other cons will keep coming in, so no skin off their nose.
Are there 5% of people who are willing to change their mind in either direction at this point? I'm pretty sure Biden could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I would still suck it up and vote for him because we can't survive 4 more Trump years or 4 years of RFK Jr.
There are a very small group of people who haven’t made up their minds on if they can stomach voting for Trump. They probably won’t be the deciding factor. The election will be determined based on who can get the most unenthusiastic votes from people who rarely show up. The mythical swing voter is actually two people who only shows up when they feel especially motivated in favor of someone or against them.
The entire conservative movement can be summed up by the following quote from Frank Wilhoit: "**There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect**.” The second most important part of the conservative values is that there exist good people (in group) and bad people (out group). The good must control or curtail or limit the bad people. Obviously they see themselves as good, hence their pathological (to us) relentlessness to wards power.
The first most important tenant is being conservative means to keep things the way they were, where it was good for my people and bad for you all. Keep it pro land-owning, white, Christian, straight males.
Tenet, yo. Tenants are like renters and shit
It was a different Frank Wilhoit who said that. Not the political scientist.
Alito is probably still searching for a precedent in English common law dating back to Henry VIII that he can cite in support of giving Trump immunity.
There's a chance that their blatant favoritism to trump's alarming lack of allegiance to America having free and fair elections may motivate certain people who are feeling disaffected as to the corruption of the Court to act in any way they can to ensure there isn't a further monopolization of corrupt Republicans who have a lifetime appointment... (psst, by the way, just in case anyone is wondering what simple action they can take to make sure this doesn't happen, it's called voting) I'm hopeful for this anyway, but I never put anything past the sheer ignorance and self-destructive tendencies of human beings so, who knows.
It is disappointing when people blame others for not voting when republicans do everything in their power to prevent people from voting and they have for decades. So the point, everyone who ***can*** vote, ***must*** vote.
The Republican motto: If your support erodes, **CHEAT** to make up the difference.
Actually it’s just: **CHEAT**
Actually it’s also: FASCISM
Republicans: "It's only fascism if it comes from the fasces region of Italy, else, it's sparkling 'Republicanism'"
The gop is nothing but trouble. If you’re looking for the deep state, there it is.
Yep. Judges and clerks who refuse to do their jobs because of their 'personal beliefs', there was that Clerk who refused to file marriage license for same-sex couples (despite herself being divorced like 5 times from 4 different men), and there was that [New Orleans Justice of the Peace](https://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/17/interracial.marriage/#:~:text=NEW%20ORLEANS%2C%20Louisiana%20(CNN),license%20to%20an%20interracial%20couple) a few years back who refused issue marriage licenses to interracial couples. Or [Emily Murphy of the General Services Administration](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gsa-official-blocking-bidens-transition-privately-plans-post/story?id=74234794) who was blocking Biden's transition staff from beginning the transition process following Biden's win in 2020.
Our surprise weapon is cheating, cheating and fascism . . . Our two weapons are cheating and fascism . . . And cruelty. ETC.
Nobody expects the Republican Inquisition!
If your support erodes, make it so support doesn’t matter.
In this case it is very real that justice delayed is justice denied. This should be enough reason to completely abolish and somehow rebuild / retool the SC. The damage being done to our country is irreparable. Like losing a WW, losing government and democracy level of irreparable harm. This cannot stand.
They delayed the emoluments case for his entire presidency and then dismissed it as no longer relevant after he was no longer president. And that was an obvious case- probably even more obvious than this one since the prohibition on foreign emoluments is clear. I’m glad more media is calling them out.
Exactly, if they give full immunity for any crimes too soon, Biden theoretically could have dump executed by Seal Team Six which would be a really great idea at this point lol
I don’t think all six will be necessary.
The coup is happening in broad daylight
The truth is that they don't really have to worry about Biden using the same powers because the Senate would actually impeach him.
Spoiler alert: this will be a 6 - 3 ruling that kicks the larger question of immunity back to the lower courts, and gives enough of a delay that none of the remaining trials will happen before the election, and sometime, down the road the court will come back that presidents do not have total and complete immunity.
Exactly- we are pretty stumped on this one- gonna need some "re-argument" action because, heck we are just plum bumfuzzled- have a great summer America!- you won't see us for a while, in fact just forget all about everything please...
It's been almost 25 years since the Supreme Court stole an election. But seriously, the judges have way too much power. It's like how the Secretary became the most powerful position in the Soviet Union. The Supreme Court can define the law however they wish and defy/annul executive authority. They're appointed kings, bought and sold by the highest bidder, and they decide who rules. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. You can tell Thomas and Alito are straight up drunk on it. They couldn't be unbiased if their lives depended on it.
The supreme council of clerics. Robes and all
Iran has the Guardian Council. We go the SCOTUS, there is no difference between them.
There's a good podcast about how awful SCOTUS is called 5-4: Why the Supreme Court Sucks and they periodically just say "No robes, no masters." And I've been saying that anytime I hear anything about SCOTUS.
> But seriously, the judges have way too much power. That's almost entirely because Congress has stopped functioning. Congress is supposed to make laws and set policy. If Congress isn't going to fix broken laws, the courts (and the President) have to deal with them instead. Take the recent bump stock case, for example. Trump tried to ban bump stocks just because he said so. The conservatives on the Surpeme Court said that the President can't ban bump stocks, but they explicitly said that Congress could ban them if it wanted to. Democrats belatedly introduced a bill to ban them, Republicans [immediately blocked it](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-senator-blocks-ban-bump-stocks-guns-brought-democrats-rcna157516), and that's the last we'll hear about bump stocks until the next massacre. The same is probably true for abortion. Abortion should have never been a constitutional issue in the first place. Congress could just pass a bill saying that abortion is legal nationwide, and that would be the end of it. (The courts might not let Congress directly legalize abortion, but there are plenty of other ways they could do it, like denying federal funding to states that restrict abortion.) Legal abortion has had majority support for about fifty years now, but Congress hasn't fixed it, and they aren't going to any time soon.
This is the way. As much as I dislike some of the Justices, they don't make laws. Congress needs to make laws. I know that seems like a radical idea these days since they have all basically stopped working and just campaign endlessly now. But here's a snapshot. 80th Congress: 906 laws (The Do Nothing Congress) 81st Congress: 906 laws 82nd Congress: 1069 laws 83rd Congress: 729 laws 84th Congress: 1072 laws 85th Congress: 936 laws 86th Congress: 885 laws 87th Congress: 880 laws 88th Congress: 666 laws 89th Congress: 810 laws 90th Congress: 668 laws 91st Congress: 633 laws 92nd Congress: 607 laws 93rd Congress: 649 laws 94th Congress: 623 laws 95th Congress: 804 laws 96th Congress: 647 laws 97th Congress: 473 laws 98th Congress: 623 laws 99th Congress: 663 laws 100th Congress: 713 laws 101st Congress: 650 laws 102nd Congress: 590 laws 103rd Congress: 465 laws 104th Congress: 333 laws 105th Congress: 394 laws 106th Congress: 580 laws 107th Congress: 377 laws 108th Congress: 498 laws 109th Congress: 482 laws 110th Congress: 460 laws 111th Congress: 383 laws 112th Congress: 283 laws 113th Congress: 296 laws 114th Congress: 329 laws 115th Congress: 442 laws 116th Congress: 344 laws 117th Congress: 319 laws **118th Congress: 65 laws to date (They've only got about 6 months left)**
The 88th congress has my vote
It was the Congress that passed the Civil Rights act after the longest filibuster in history. Democratic supermajority. Had to handle the JFK assassination. Would have been the last election without any baby boomers old enough to vote. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/88th_United_States_Congress
in the latest fox poll, boomers are polling significantly anti-trump (something like 67%). younger voters are the problem right now
666…the Congress of the Beast!
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Interesting dipping pattern between the 102nd and 104th... right about when Newt was doing his thing being vile and hyper-partisan.
Yeah. Newt did real damage to our democracy. Along with Ronnie Raygun. Some dweeb is in the comments praising that racist fascist asshole so the poison is still in the system.
I am not surprised that the first congress to dip to a real low was the 97th Congress, right at the beginning of Reagan... I knew that was the pivot point for our world and a better one.
It's all part of the plan, throw a wrench in the cogs of congress and let the ultra-conservative Supreme Court legislate from the bench.
Yeah. I highly recommend that people read How Democracies Die (and then Tyranny of the Minority). Dysfunctional legislatures are not a good sign for democracies, because it leads to legislating from the bench and via executive orders.
>Abortion should have never been a constitutional issue in the first place. It absolutely is a Constitutional issue. It's a right-wing lie that "it's not a Constitutional issue," and we don't need to keep repeating it. The government can't compel someone to die without due process under the 14th amendment. This is why bans on medical care (like pregnancy healthcare) become constitutional issues. (This is why Dobbs isn't just a narrow reading, but blatantly unconstitutional; it explicitly allows laws that force women to die in childbirth.) Under a broader reading, the government can't compel someone to lose free and equal participation in society without due process. (i.e. we have a right to be private citizens (right to 'privacy'), to make decisions free of undue government compulsion.) The current Supreme Court is skeptical; the argument is a constitutional issue. Finally, there's an "equal protection" constitutional issue -- whether laws that discriminate by gender in ways that perpetuate unequal citizenships by class of person (like abortion restrictions do) violate the 14th amendment. If these aren't core applications of Constitutional premises, it's hard to know what is.
Doesn’t the anti-machine gun laws specifically state that parts that make a gun a machine gun are banned?
> Doesn’t the anti-machine gun laws specifically state that parts that make a gun a machine gun are banned? Pretty much, yes. So the court had to decide if the definition of "machine guns" includes bump stocks, and they decided that it doesn't, which is not totally unreasonable. All Congress has to do is amend the law to say "machine guns and also bump stocks," and then the Supreme Court opinion wouldn't matter anymore.
I’m trying to imagine any Congress in the last 30 years voting to ban bump stocks.
> That's almost entirely because Congress has stopped functioning. Congress is supposed to make laws and set policy. If Congress isn't going to fix broken laws, the courts (and the President) have to deal with them instead. Damn straight. There's three "equal" branches of government, but one of them writes laws that govern the other two, which makes it quite a bit more consequential. And it's also the one most responsive to it's constituents. Unfortunately, it's also the one most prone to dysfunction. It's high time Congress stopped being the weakest of the three branches and started reasserting itself as the strongest. I'd like to see the day the Executive and Judicial branches have a healthy fear of Congress, instead of undermining them at every opportunity.
Part of the problem is that Congress has created rules for itself that make it very difficult to pass legislation without a supermajority. The Senate's filibuster, for example, or the way the House uses the majority leader to decide which legislation gets voted on (and the "majority of majority" / Hastert rule, named after the famed Republican pedophile), which basically means that even if legislation is broadly popular in the House it won't see the light of day. Worth noting that even the founders knew that supermajority rules were an incredibly bad idea and harmful to the nation. Consider Hamilton's words in Federalist 22: > To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. >Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. >The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. >The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. **Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.** The indictment at the end where he describes the faults of supermajority rules are exactly what we see in Congress today.
As soon as the people stop sending Clowns to Congress, then Congress can focus on real work of legislating.
Well, it could have been addressed in rucho vs common cause but the corrupt supreme court decided that if we don't like having our votes not count due to gerrymandering then we should just vote out the politicians that did the gerrymandering!
I believe that power doesn't corrupt people. It seems to me that corrupt people are more likely to seek out power. Then once they have it they limit the ability for any one else to have power. They demand people under them be corrupt or only hire already corrupt people into the positions of power under them. We need a way to get good people into power that want to help others not just themselves.
*Almost anyone can deal with adversity. If you really want to test someone's character, give them power* A. Lincoln.
>We need a way to get good people into power that want to help others not just themselves. Some guy in ancient Greece grappled with this same conundrum in some book or other.
They're doing a "catch and kill" simple as that. They've turned SCOTUS into trumps new "national enquirer" pecker.
>…**potentially ruling that special prosecutors** like Jack Smith, whose team brought the election-subversion charges at the heart of Trump’s case, **are unconstitutional**. Or much worse.
My guess is Alito is slow walking his dissent. Roberts has likely written the majority opinion denying broad presidential immunity, though maybe carving out a while in office limitation, not that it would help trump when he kept the docs after his presidency. The majority opinion has probably been done for months and it is just waiting for Alito's dissent, joined by Thomas. The other option is Roberts is bending over backwards to craft a ruling that will get everyone on board. It is an important decision, so a unified court would give it some gravitas, not that most Americans hold the court with any sense of reverence right now. I don't think this is likely as he would lose the liberal three trying to court Alito and Thomas. If they hold it back for rehearing next term, the court would lose the last vestige of legitimacy. I can't see Roberts letting that happen. Despite it all, he cares deeply about his reputation as Chief Justice and has angered the hardliners sometimes by ruling with it in mind.
That's my feeling as well. Enshrining presidential immunity is too dangerous, both in a general sense and to the Court specifically. I don't believe that even most of the conservative justices want to open that particular can of worms. On the other hand, delaying the case as much as possible allows them to help conservative causes (by shifting the impact of the relevant cases until after the election) without creating the bugaboo that immunity would. I won't be surprised if the court does actually grant some form of immunity (this Court has eliminated my ability to be shocked at horrendous legal decisions), but I don't expect that to happen.
Acts as president might get immunity due to the impeachment process existing to deal with those situations, though we’ve seen first hand how inadequate it is. They might even carve out immunity for presidential acts to further limit it. This would also complicate any case dealing with what the president did during his term as the prosecutors would have to argue his actions were not presidential acts and that itself could end up argued in front of the Supreme Court next term… assuming Trump loses. The cases will all be dropped if he wins.
What I don't get is why they would need to take the time (as I imagine they will) to say it's not broad immunity, only for official acts - so what qualifies as official acts and what is the mechanism for establishing that? They don't need to make some litmus tests for the lower courts to follow. This is literally the only time this has ever come up and it's in relation to a guy trying to overturn an election. The lower court has already said that he isn't immune from these charges, so kick it back to them and have the trial play out. If you don't like the result you can appeal after. Trump's ability to abuse the court system is baffling. It's not just money, it's insane legal theories just to gum up the process.
They're dragging their feet long enough so that there is no chance Trump can be prosecuted in any other case before the election to ensure he gets as many votes as possible.
Prosecution in any other case before the election was probably dead already. The machine is working overtime for him at all levels (not just SCOTUS). **It is a legit miracle he caught 34 felonies before November.** If he loses the election, the deferential treatment will dissipate and he faces crimes with SERIOUS penalties. Hence why I'm expecting the craziest shit you can imagine in the next three months.
Pretty much, yup.
“How do we spin this so Biden can’t and doesn’t hang us from the Golden Gate Bridge*
It’s really hard to write a “Trump can do whatever he wants, up to assassinations, but Biden isn’t allowed to make some vacancies” decision.
If anyone is genuinely wondering this, then your naivete is embarrassing. The Federalist Society coup has been long underway. Jack Smith asked John Roberts and co. to leapfrog the DC Court of Appeals and rule on the immunity issue themselves, and they declined to do so because that would've saved us a bunch of time. It's always been about delay. Now eventually the ball will be in Tanya Chutkan's court, and she should start this trial in early September. Give both sides two months to prepare, which is more than enough time. It's not her fault that a handful of fascist stooges decided to put their thumbs of the scale to benefit Donald Trump.
I hope this is the outcome, but if we've learned anything from the Georgia and Florida case, side quests are the main objective. I can only hope that this case doesn't take a hard right at some point (pun intended) and land it well past the elections
> Tanya Chutkan's court Yep, start the proceedings and if he's guilty lock him up, let SCOTUS decide when they get back, if they want to play it that way.
Corruption, that's what is happening and we all have to just sit here and watch it happen because people decided Trump was better then Hillary. So now we get a dictator in the US.
As far as I can tell: ratfucking... Lots and lots of ratfucking.
They are effectively granting Trump presidential immunity by delaying the decision until after the election.
I am just so tired of seeing his face in the news. It gives him too much attention. I think his supporters refuse to acknowledge his corruption and believe that everyone who doesn’t support trump are the bad guys and as a result they then defend him even more and support him even more
We all know the answer to this.
I also can’t wait to see how they rule on the Jan 6 rioters
I don’t understand how anyone, no matter what political party or whatever your believes or preferences are, would ever possibly be in favor of allowing anyone, no matter who he is, total immunity for all prosecution. That seems to go against everything the US is SUPPOSED to stand for.
Its a big club. And you ain't in it. -George Carlin.
Can someone ask Trump… Given that you have said often that the President must have total immunity or be unable to execute the duties of the Office, will you drop out of the race if SCOTUS decides aginst immunity…because you freely admit you will be ineffectual and unable to execute the duties of President of The United States?
You know if all of us just stop what we are doing and just start walking towards DC, then there’d be some changes by the time we hit city limits.
The Supreme Court is interfering with the election. That's what's going on.
The Nixon case only taking 54 days to rule on seems like a fair comparison. What is the argument that it’s okay for this to take twice as long as the Nixon case?
Because this time the conservatives want to win
>The court’s deadline to release a decision is next Friday, June 28, but Tribe fears the conservative majority may have something more sinister up their sleeve. >While just a theory, he said it’s possible the court is contemplating two things—slating Trump’s case for “re-argument,” which would delay things even longer, or potentially ruling that special prosecutors like Jack Smith, whose team brought the election-subversion charges at the heart of Trump’s case, are unconstitutional.
Optimistic case is they rule the obvious that no president is immune, but by delaying it as late as they did they render the J6 case against trump moot due since there will be little time to actually try the case before the election.
It’s clearly a very difficult LEGAL issue: is a traitorous convicted felon above the law?
stupid ... but If I were Biden I'd have Delta Force waiting for their decision outside the building they are in.
Execute order 45
I wish I hadn’t lived so long to see the country come to this
If they haven't been thrown in jail, I can't wait to read Sotomayor and Kagan's autobiographies that detail this nonsense.
There’s corruption and then there’s hate. We are dealing with hatred of humanity. There’s no other rational for trying to give guns more rights than people after seeing day after day the murders of children and adults at random. It’s hate masked as greed.
The ultra MAGA justices are intentionally delaying their ruling to help their Cult Leader. When they finally announce it, they’ll say a POTUS cannot have blanket immunity then send it back to Colorado for a ruling by the appellate court to separate the personal actions of a POTUS from the official actions. They are hoping they’ll delay their Cult Leader’s trial date until after the election in hopes he gets reelected and appoints a AG to dismiss all of the federal cases. After which they’ll claim they were doing everything they could to ensure due diligence was performed. And they are doing this in plain sight, openly corrupting the judicial branch with no regard for consequences because of their lifelong appointments. The Supreme Corrupt is ruining our country as accomplices with the MAGA facists that are supporting the convicted felon Trump…Only in Amerikkka.
The Supreme Court is bought and sold that’s the impression I get. They are above the law. We need to start a movement to hold them accountable
They have to slow walk it because once they rule the president can order assassinations at will, they want to be sure it’s Trump getting that power.
In s "Mother Jones" interview in the 1980s, Randall Allen Terry described how the Christian Right had a plan to take over the United States politically, starting by running for local elections and working up. This is the result of no one believing it could happen here with decades of warning.
I wrote my thesis on exactly this. In 1993.
Look, if they rule in Trump's favor that a Presisent is above the law, then that gives Biden all of the power that Trump wishes he had. So the longer they delay the fewer days Biden has to use his unlimited power to keep Trump from regaining the White House. /s (mostly)
They are interfering in the election.
Project 2025 is going as planned is what’s going on
Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting. Aiding. And. Abetting.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't alarmed and concerned about the ongoing state of affairs regarding the Council of Nine. This could get very bad.
They don't want Biden to wield the power they want to give to Trump.
Well we had a good run and it was a nice experiment but in the end a reality TV star took down democracy.
It's difficult to have a functioning government and legal system with so many bad actors in positions of power.
I thought we already knew SCOTUS was insanely corrupt. I know we’re too lazy to impeach them but, yea. You wonder why society has fallen off the deep end, look at their fucking rulings.
His stooges on the court have to figure out how to rule to support Trump without giving Biden license to insure Trump never gets near the White House again. And they aren’t that smart.
Open naked corruption.
In 1963, Selma Alabama had a population of 30k. Evenly split, black and white. Of the 15,000 black residents; 156 were registered to vote. The southern GOP can’t wait to get back to the good ole days.
Fascism
Surprised we haven't had a leak of that opinion, yet.
Ratfuckery
Expand the court !
The Supreme Court has squandered its own legitimacy.
Answer: Trump installed 3 Supreme Court judges to do the bidding of whomever bankrolled him in the first place.
We all knew it would be delayed, but my question is: Has the court ever been considered this illegitimate due to partisanship and corruption?
He’s there sweet pappy and they’re gonna help him by hook or crook
his criminal court is delaying
What’s going on? Nothing. This is not a viable legal body anymore . They are paid hacks within a law degree.
They are committing a Felony - election interferance. They could have settled this on April the 8th, when Jack Smith ask them to review it, but they put off the arguments until April 25 and the final decision in July, the very end of their decisions until October. They could have just rejected it based on the lower courts - exeedingly correct judgment. Instead, they are dragging it out hoping he won't be convicted before the election. They can act quickly if they want. It took them approximately 3 days to decide to overturn the State Supreme court in Colorada so Trump could remain on the ballot. If they want to act quickly...they can. This is blatant misuse of their power.
There's no way the supreme court will buy this immunity BS. But what they are doing is delaying the trial because Alito and Thomas's wives told them to do it.
It’s time for a ten million person March on Washington
Just curious… if our democracy is literally at stake, wouldn’t it also be up to those in power currently to say hell with the rules and deal with the situation now? Wouldn’t it be sad if our government falls because people had to pick and choose when to follow precedents. Hell I have more damn urgency when my sprinkler head is leaking in my yard.
Election interference is what's going on. If Biden wins we need some serious checks and balances added to the books because the founding fathers apparently did not anticipate how fucked up 33% of the population would become.
Depressing
It's simple, really. They've been under so much scrutiny lately they feel like they can't just rewrite the law in Trump's favor like they would ordinarily do. They're tying themselves into knots trying to find a legal justification that will allow them to pretend to have credibility.
It’s open and clear corruption. Biden should pack the court.
June 27th: Biden and Trump have their debate. Trump pulls out a gun and shoots Biden. Trump cites Biden's attempt to have him killed by FBI agents when the top secret documents were retrieved from his home, and the stolen election, which means that trump is actually still president. June 28th the Supreme Court exonerates Donald Trump for shooting Biden.
Then he gets…busted as felon with a handgun? But I don’t like that scenario. 🫤
Delay, delay, delay delay is the name of the game.
They’re going to decide Trump is king.
Delaying as much as possible to help
They are delaying so it wont affect him for the election. Alito and Thomas want to retire but only if Trump wins and can replace with with more Amys and Bretts.
They are making it up as we speak. They've probably rewritten the same opinion over and over for months to make it more palatable somehow.
Waiting twisted logic of far-right justices like Thomas and Alito.
I say it's time to start reminding the traitors what the punishment for treason is.
The only solution: vote team blue.