Doesn't the new Supreme Court decision now allow a president to overturn that decision by using Article II powers to assassinate the correct number of Supreme Court justices, and the necessary number of US senators to confirm compliant court nominees and ensure acquittal in any impeachment trial?
That's only if a lawsuit reaches them. They can't just wake up one morning and decide that a particular case really needs overturning. Yet, anyway. As to the former Supreme Court justices, I'd claim waiver and move to dismiss the charges on that basis. Choose the senators well, and you could perhaps make the same argument.
I understand that from the shooting political rivals perspective, but arguing their own decision back to them, FAFO, law of unintended consequences I think should be fair game. It’s not really any different from when a local government tries to get around religious displays in public buildings by opening it to any group who wants to fill out the paperwork, then has to deal with a church of satan display next to the nativity.
That's what I'm worried about too. We are in fucking free-fall and now is not the time to unilaterally disarm. This is likely our last fucking chance to prevent a right-wing dictatorship for the foreseeable future. We should be using every fucking tool we can think of — norms be damned.
I know Biden is an institutionalist but I hope he has people around him urging him to say fuck that, it's now or never.
Liquidate all six of the right wing hacks infesting SCOTUS, Kaczmarek, Cannon, and any other of the enemies of the rule of law hiding within judicial robes. Round up all the authors of the 2025 Project and give trials before military tribumals, and let us not neglect Mark Myers, Rudy Ghouliani, Navarro, Bannon, and the whole 1/6 Putsch crew. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Give them the same short shrift the Lincoln administration gave the Baltimore seditionists in 1861 who tried to prevent Northern troops from reaching Washington D.C.
This is no longer anything like normal politics- it is war to the knife, an existential struggle for America, no holds barred. We fail to fight back, we lose.
SCOTUS previously ruled decades ago that a President is immune from CIVIL liability for acts that are “within the outer perimeter of their official duties” in Nixon v Fitzgerald, a 5-4 decision. The logic was that because anyone with a few hundred bucks for the filing fee can file a civil lawsuit, the President should have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits so as to avoid being the target of multiple nuisance suits.
The current SCOTUS extended the ruling in Fitzgerald to make a President immune from CRIMINAL prosecution under the same circumstances (despite the District Court, a unanimous panel of the DC COA, and the 3 liberal SCOTUS Justices determining that Fitzgerald did not apply because criminal defendants are entitled to much higher protections under the law). Of curse, this SCOTUS majority said “fuck that.”
Of course I’m familiar with Fitzgerald and the other liability cases (Clinton v. Jones, etc.). I was just trying to (ineptly) respond to the posters who believed that the latest decision would shield Biden from Dr. Feelgood’s idiot Gaza case.
"It has been a right-wing canard for years that UNRWA secretly funds Palestinian terrorism, or some shit." UNRWA has been complicit in Palestinian terrorism for decades. Their facilities are used as missile launch pads and arms storage sites; their schools push the most murderous propaganda; and they provide gainful employment for Hamasniks who otherwise might have to do something other than train for attacks. This is not a "right-wing canard" but an open secret.
Let me start with a disclaimer that I consider lawsuits like this total bullshit. That said, UNRWA can go pound sand.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA. Note, there is a separate Wikipedia article for Israeli allegations against the organization, so what I cited contains a more balanced view, and cites a lot of "neutral" sources, that go beyond mere allegations. Some highlights:
"In 2021, th eAustralian and Canadian governments started investigating UNRWA, and the British government found that UNRWA had produced and disseminated textbooks inciting violence. UNRWA blocked public access to its website contents in response. Philippe Lazzarini admitted to the European Parliament that the study materials in UNRWA's school featured incitement to violence, glorification of acts of terror and antisemitism, but insisted that the agency takes steps to prevent the material from being taught." (Yes, the organization's official response that even though they commission such materials, purchase them and distributed them to UNRWA schools, they are preventing the contents from being taught. Make of it what you will.)
"Peter Hansen, UNRWA's former Commissioner-General (1996-2005), caused controversy in Canada in October 2004 when he said in an interview with CBC TV: 'Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another.[...]' Hansen later specified that he had been referring not to active Hamas members, but to Hamas sympathizers within UNRWA." [When he said "Hamas members", he didn't mean "Hamas members".]
"James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel and fellow researcher for Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report for WINEP in 2009 in which he criticized UNRWA practices. One of his conclusions was that UNRWA is not ousting terrorists from its ranks. 'UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff. UNRWA has no preemployment security checks and does not monitor off-time behavior to ensure compliance with the organization's anti-terror rules."
Note, the same article also details all the ways in which Hamas pressures UNRWA into supporting its policies and practices -- meaning, it's not necessarily that the leadership of UNRWA supports Hamas, or that the organization is intended to support terror, but that the entire setup makes the subordination of UNRWA to Hamas virtually inevitable. (I mean, it's not like the UN is gonna send an army in there to prevent that from happening, amirite?) The misuse of UNRWA facilities, ID cards and vehicles, as well as coercion to suspend those activities of UNRWA that Hamas does not like are not only well-documented, but make perfect logical sense. Basically, it's a hen house in a wolf den.
In February 2024, the IDF discovered a tunnel and weapons depot underneath the UNRWA in Gaza, which is also discussed in the article. So far, in giving the highlights, I've mostly refrained from citing Israeli claims as sources, but this was so well-documented, UNRWA basically admitted it was true. UNRWA's response is that it was unaware of this. Of course, this is bullshit, because come on, unaware of a bunker and a tunnel underneath your building? Accessible FROM the building? No one ever heard the constant hum from the pumps and the ventilation system? One small but telling discovery in all this was that of the electricity meter, which was shared by the building and the underground facility. Now, I know Philippe Lazzarini sits in Switzerland or whatever, and is not there to babysit, but I find it unbelievable that in all his years at the helm, he's never looked at his Gaza headquarters' electric bill. Or that no one in management had ever raised that as an issue.
There is also the allegation by one of the released hostages that she was being held by a UN teacher -- which shows once again the organization's unwillingness, or inability, to keep Hamas operatives out of its ranks or to enforce its anti-terror policies.
Finally, setting all that aside, the existence of a special Palestinians-only refugee agency is problematic in and of itself, because the continued crisis is its whole raison d'être. Organizations do not like being killed off any more than people do, and since the establishment of a Palestinian state would, logically, mean the end of UNRWA, UNRWA is ... not really on board with that (obligatory lip service notwithstanding). This is the reason for the more generalized reports, including by people who have served in UNRWA, which criticize the organization for institutional ossification, inflexibility, and lack of investment in the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
No, it wasn't hard at all, just casual Googling. I was a little upset to see what has been well known for a very long time described as a "right wing canard."
"In fact, the Biden White House should lean into doing whatever it wants under the guise of official acts"
Yes indeed but he already said he's not going to do that. As we used to Burma-Shave in the glad old days: "Here lies the body of Jason J/ Who died defending the Right of Way./ He was RIGHT.... DEAD RIGHT... as he passed along/ Now he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong."
What I haven't seen this past week , (oh Christ, it's really only been four days hasn't it?) is gloat. MAGAs are some gloaty motherfuckers. If we had arun like they had this last week, we'd be gloating too.
But they aren't . I think a lot of them realize they that the $70,000 pickup truck they were able to finance in the Joe Biden economy might not be something they're going to be able to make the payments on in another Donald Trump economy. They are small-minded and pig headed but a lot of them believe it or not aren't really stupid. And I think a lot of them are just tired of Trump's stupid shit. Nobody really missed The Apprentice when it finally got canceled.
Some billionaires and CEOs may regret funding Trump. Once Trump becomes a dictator for a day and his first order is installing himself dictator for life, he will pull a Putin, demanding a cut of their profits and absolute loyalty for anything he does.
But one thing right wing billionaires hate is sharing their money without getting an even bigger return on their investment. Since Trump is especially thin skinned and has no loyalty, it may not be long before some of these supporters are falling out of tenth floor windows, poisoned, in prison, or exiled. And their wealth divided among more loyal friends of Trump, with Trump taking a big cut first.
In Rebecca West's "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" she describes travelling in 1937 from Austria to Zagreb in a train compartment full of German businessmen and their wives, and they all said that life under Hitler was proving nerve-rackingly chaotic. New taxes out of nowhere, extortionate demands for "contributions" from Nazi Party activists and officials, having to accept the imposition of party members without any useful knowledge or experience into management....Everything up for grabs, no way to plan or budget, plus the danger of being overheard grumbling. Typical life in a right-wing dictatorship, in short.
Cool, cool. Why not? The Fifth Circus will affirm, and maybe SCROTUS has to send them back to school to read about standing. Maybe there is a Prager U video they can watch?
RWNJ judge sez: ""Defendants arbitrarily . . . and unlawfully changed the Trump Policy" on January 20,2021."
I remember that day! For reasons. I distinctly remember how, on that particular day, I had this sudden rush of euphoria in the middle of the day as if an invisible and huge crushing burden had been lifted off my back and tossed aside. This was followed up with a distinct sense that some invisible presence stood there helping me to stand back up on my feet and straighten my aching back.
Then I heard a voice speaking in my ear. I remember that voice and the words. The voice said "That's enough of that malarkey."
A serene calm (or was it a serene clam? It was a moment of unusual clarity shrouded in obscurity) followed and I knew that, at least for a little bit, All Is Well.
HELLS to the Yeah, Gary Legum! I want my vile angry snark mob pandering to come with some insouciance, mockery, and witty disdain, dammit!
Ta, Gary. Wingnuts gonna wingnut.
Speaking of ripping things out of the white house, can I sue Melania over the rose garden massacre? That's still stuck in my craw.
Pulling the final thread holding all this shit together...
Be the tyrant the USSC says you can be, Joe!
"Tim Ryan or a banana or whatever Bill Maher thinks is appropriate."
Ryan is not up for it. He just published an editorial saying Kamala should be the D candidate.
https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-should-democratic-nominee-president-2024-opinion-1919894
Tim Ryan can suck an unpeeled banana with his pie hole
Doesn't the new Supreme Court decision now allow a president to overturn that decision by using Article II powers to assassinate the correct number of Supreme Court justices, and the necessary number of US senators to confirm compliant court nominees and ensure acquittal in any impeachment trial?
He could but the justices he nominates to replace them will likely overturn that decision, putting him back in legal jeopardy.
Fall on your sword for us Joe!
So, just order another round of assassinations. Fixed.
That's only if a lawsuit reaches them. They can't just wake up one morning and decide that a particular case really needs overturning. Yet, anyway. As to the former Supreme Court justices, I'd claim waiver and move to dismiss the charges on that basis. Choose the senators well, and you could perhaps make the same argument.
"In fact, the Biden White House should lean into doing whatever it wants under the guise of official acts from now until the end of Biden’s term"
He should, but he won't
I understand that from the shooting political rivals perspective, but arguing their own decision back to them, FAFO, law of unintended consequences I think should be fair game. It’s not really any different from when a local government tries to get around religious displays in public buildings by opening it to any group who wants to fill out the paperwork, then has to deal with a church of satan display next to the nativity.
That's what I'm worried about too. We are in fucking free-fall and now is not the time to unilaterally disarm. This is likely our last fucking chance to prevent a right-wing dictatorship for the foreseeable future. We should be using every fucking tool we can think of — norms be damned.
I know Biden is an institutionalist but I hope he has people around him urging him to say fuck that, it's now or never.
Liquidate all six of the right wing hacks infesting SCOTUS, Kaczmarek, Cannon, and any other of the enemies of the rule of law hiding within judicial robes. Round up all the authors of the 2025 Project and give trials before military tribumals, and let us not neglect Mark Myers, Rudy Ghouliani, Navarro, Bannon, and the whole 1/6 Putsch crew. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! Give them the same short shrift the Lincoln administration gave the Baltimore seditionists in 1861 who tried to prevent Northern troops from reaching Washington D.C.
This is no longer anything like normal politics- it is war to the knife, an existential struggle for America, no holds barred. We fail to fight back, we lose.
Not trying to be that guy, but SCOTUS only decided criminal immunity. The same court would not tarry in fucking Biden on a noncriminal matter.
SCOTUS previously ruled decades ago that a President is immune from CIVIL liability for acts that are “within the outer perimeter of their official duties” in Nixon v Fitzgerald, a 5-4 decision. The logic was that because anyone with a few hundred bucks for the filing fee can file a civil lawsuit, the President should have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits so as to avoid being the target of multiple nuisance suits.
The current SCOTUS extended the ruling in Fitzgerald to make a President immune from CRIMINAL prosecution under the same circumstances (despite the District Court, a unanimous panel of the DC COA, and the 3 liberal SCOTUS Justices determining that Fitzgerald did not apply because criminal defendants are entitled to much higher protections under the law). Of curse, this SCOTUS majority said “fuck that.”
The more you know…
Of course I’m familiar with Fitzgerald and the other liability cases (Clinton v. Jones, etc.). I was just trying to (ineptly) respond to the posters who believed that the latest decision would shield Biden from Dr. Feelgood’s idiot Gaza case.
"Absolute immunity" means what it says. There is no "criminal."
"It has been a right-wing canard for years that UNRWA secretly funds Palestinian terrorism, or some shit." UNRWA has been complicit in Palestinian terrorism for decades. Their facilities are used as missile launch pads and arms storage sites; their schools push the most murderous propaganda; and they provide gainful employment for Hamasniks who otherwise might have to do something other than train for attacks. This is not a "right-wing canard" but an open secret.
[citation needed]
Let me start with a disclaimer that I consider lawsuits like this total bullshit. That said, UNRWA can go pound sand.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA. Note, there is a separate Wikipedia article for Israeli allegations against the organization, so what I cited contains a more balanced view, and cites a lot of "neutral" sources, that go beyond mere allegations. Some highlights:
"In 2021, th eAustralian and Canadian governments started investigating UNRWA, and the British government found that UNRWA had produced and disseminated textbooks inciting violence. UNRWA blocked public access to its website contents in response. Philippe Lazzarini admitted to the European Parliament that the study materials in UNRWA's school featured incitement to violence, glorification of acts of terror and antisemitism, but insisted that the agency takes steps to prevent the material from being taught." (Yes, the organization's official response that even though they commission such materials, purchase them and distributed them to UNRWA schools, they are preventing the contents from being taught. Make of it what you will.)
"Peter Hansen, UNRWA's former Commissioner-General (1996-2005), caused controversy in Canada in October 2004 when he said in an interview with CBC TV: 'Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another.[...]' Hansen later specified that he had been referring not to active Hamas members, but to Hamas sympathizers within UNRWA." [When he said "Hamas members", he didn't mean "Hamas members".]
"James G. Lindsay, a former UNRWA general counsel and fellow researcher for Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report for WINEP in 2009 in which he criticized UNRWA practices. One of his conclusions was that UNRWA is not ousting terrorists from its ranks. 'UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff. UNRWA has no preemployment security checks and does not monitor off-time behavior to ensure compliance with the organization's anti-terror rules."
Note, the same article also details all the ways in which Hamas pressures UNRWA into supporting its policies and practices -- meaning, it's not necessarily that the leadership of UNRWA supports Hamas, or that the organization is intended to support terror, but that the entire setup makes the subordination of UNRWA to Hamas virtually inevitable. (I mean, it's not like the UN is gonna send an army in there to prevent that from happening, amirite?) The misuse of UNRWA facilities, ID cards and vehicles, as well as coercion to suspend those activities of UNRWA that Hamas does not like are not only well-documented, but make perfect logical sense. Basically, it's a hen house in a wolf den.
In February 2024, the IDF discovered a tunnel and weapons depot underneath the UNRWA in Gaza, which is also discussed in the article. So far, in giving the highlights, I've mostly refrained from citing Israeli claims as sources, but this was so well-documented, UNRWA basically admitted it was true. UNRWA's response is that it was unaware of this. Of course, this is bullshit, because come on, unaware of a bunker and a tunnel underneath your building? Accessible FROM the building? No one ever heard the constant hum from the pumps and the ventilation system? One small but telling discovery in all this was that of the electricity meter, which was shared by the building and the underground facility. Now, I know Philippe Lazzarini sits in Switzerland or whatever, and is not there to babysit, but I find it unbelievable that in all his years at the helm, he's never looked at his Gaza headquarters' electric bill. Or that no one in management had ever raised that as an issue.
There is also the allegation by one of the released hostages that she was being held by a UN teacher -- which shows once again the organization's unwillingness, or inability, to keep Hamas operatives out of its ranks or to enforce its anti-terror policies.
Finally, setting all that aside, the existence of a special Palestinians-only refugee agency is problematic in and of itself, because the continued crisis is its whole raison d'être. Organizations do not like being killed off any more than people do, and since the establishment of a Palestinian state would, logically, mean the end of UNRWA, UNRWA is ... not really on board with that (obligatory lip service notwithstanding). This is the reason for the more generalized reports, including by people who have served in UNRWA, which criticize the organization for institutional ossification, inflexibility, and lack of investment in the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Thanks, I appreciate the education.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-fh-fRs7To
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3810867009196005
https://unwatch.org/un-teachers-call-to-murder-jews-reveals-new-report/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-weapons-found-al-shifa-hospital-2023-11-15/
https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/journalist-doctor-held-israelis-hostage-in-gaza/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEd5w-9BvA0
See? That wasn't so hard. Although I find Kate's citations above far less biased.
No, it wasn't hard at all, just casual Googling. I was a little upset to see what has been well known for a very long time described as a "right wing canard."
"Israeli Military says"
'k
https://x.com/jvplive/status/1740460503108059346?t=2TLJJHglhIr6DzJXpYSOFA&s=19
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/us/politics/gaza-hospital-hamas.html
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-intelligence-shifa-biden-hostages-israel-d0f782682a7a06ed5a3749ed92c4f821
"In fact, the Biden White House should lean into doing whatever it wants under the guise of official acts"
Yes indeed but he already said he's not going to do that. As we used to Burma-Shave in the glad old days: "Here lies the body of Jason J/ Who died defending the Right of Way./ He was RIGHT.... DEAD RIGHT... as he passed along/ Now he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong."
Uncle Joe can just send Seal Team Six to assassinate this judge, right? <s>
Why even bother having a president? Let’s just let this one asshole in Amarillo decide everything.
He may be ruling that next week.
What I haven't seen this past week , (oh Christ, it's really only been four days hasn't it?) is gloat. MAGAs are some gloaty motherfuckers. If we had arun like they had this last week, we'd be gloating too.
But they aren't . I think a lot of them realize they that the $70,000 pickup truck they were able to finance in the Joe Biden economy might not be something they're going to be able to make the payments on in another Donald Trump economy. They are small-minded and pig headed but a lot of them believe it or not aren't really stupid. And I think a lot of them are just tired of Trump's stupid shit. Nobody really missed The Apprentice when it finally got canceled.
Many of them barely understand what is going on with SCOTUS and the rest. The trumpy side of my family didn’t even hear the news yesterday.
Those big ass trucks will be among the first to be destroyed in the coming war, as they often generally indicate the ideology of the driver.
They are more likely to have a bunch of guns in them too — those things are a magnet for thieves as is and even more so then.
Big target cross-section also too. Bet those 'Ram Tough' aren't actually armored.
Some billionaires and CEOs may regret funding Trump. Once Trump becomes a dictator for a day and his first order is installing himself dictator for life, he will pull a Putin, demanding a cut of their profits and absolute loyalty for anything he does.
But one thing right wing billionaires hate is sharing their money without getting an even bigger return on their investment. Since Trump is especially thin skinned and has no loyalty, it may not be long before some of these supporters are falling out of tenth floor windows, poisoned, in prison, or exiled. And their wealth divided among more loyal friends of Trump, with Trump taking a big cut first.
In Rebecca West's "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" she describes travelling in 1937 from Austria to Zagreb in a train compartment full of German businessmen and their wives, and they all said that life under Hitler was proving nerve-rackingly chaotic. New taxes out of nowhere, extortionate demands for "contributions" from Nazi Party activists and officials, having to accept the imposition of party members without any useful knowledge or experience into management....Everything up for grabs, no way to plan or budget, plus the danger of being overheard grumbling. Typical life in a right-wing dictatorship, in short.
(Theocracy + kleptocracy) may not work out so well for them.
and they thought the Dem taxes were bad!
Cool, cool. Why not? The Fifth Circus will affirm, and maybe SCROTUS has to send them back to school to read about standing. Maybe there is a Prager U video they can watch?
RWNJ judge sez: ""Defendants arbitrarily . . . and unlawfully changed the Trump Policy" on January 20,2021."
I remember that day! For reasons. I distinctly remember how, on that particular day, I had this sudden rush of euphoria in the middle of the day as if an invisible and huge crushing burden had been lifted off my back and tossed aside. This was followed up with a distinct sense that some invisible presence stood there helping me to stand back up on my feet and straighten my aching back.
Then I heard a voice speaking in my ear. I remember that voice and the words. The voice said "That's enough of that malarkey."
A serene calm (or was it a serene clam? It was a moment of unusual clarity shrouded in obscurity) followed and I knew that, at least for a little bit, All Is Well.
It was a very good day.
Alito: They're being mean to me, so fuck em on this one too!
He's a petty vengeful whiny bastard married to a drunk bigoted lunatic.
That shouldn't be on SCOTUS.
As if every policy Trump authorized was not arbitrary and unlawful before this Supreme Court hijacked the constitution, laws, and precedents.
👆👆👆
Clams are mostly serene that I can tell, but for them following is a slog.
For years, we have been told that clams are particularly happy, but *are they really?*
just the same way we were told that lobsters don't feel it when we dump them in boiling water.
"O Oysters, come and walk with us!'
The Walrus did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."
Probably not happy in a can.
oooops. Gonna fix right now!
Awww. We need the light humor now more than ever.
Ok. I'll fix the fix.