Roberts and all of the conservative members of the Court appear to support the Federalist Society view that democracy doesn't work very well and we need an autocratic form of government. If they *don't* believe that, they certainly don't demonstrate it very well.
But Project 2025, Russell Vought, Mike Johnson, Samuel Alito and their fanatic religiosity, combined with the desire for unchecked, "permanent" political power (scare quotes because sooner or later everyone loses power) with the Epstein Class, folded into white male supremacy is the problem - not Trump.
He has indeed at the destruction of the Republic. The Robert’s Supreme Court with its July 1, 2024 ruling that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts within their core constitutional powers, and its decisions in the last 18 months supporting and enabling a narcissistic psychopath president in his ongoing coup of our Republic is outrageous.
Dred Scott vs Sanford in 1857 and Plessy V Ferguson in 1896 challenged our country but we, Congress responded !
Unfortunately that was before there were 6 justices that have collaborated with Trump to destroy the separation of powers and support his coup of our Republic. Congress Republicans, Democrats and we the people its time to reassert our power.
I guess when Nixon said, "If the President does it, it's not illegal," he was way ahead of his time. Turns out he was right as attested to by the Supreme Court.
They were really angry at FDR and what he did and they attacked in 1971 after the Powell memo with a massively funded and organized campaign to end democracy and steal wealth from 95% of Americans and the Democrats were asleep for the last 55 years
I'd say that the unitary executive is probably a side project in support of his true passion, the elimination of the VRA. But that's splitting hairs. Does he want to disenfranchise the "wrong" people because he wants a dictator, or does he want a dictator to disenfranchise the "wrong" people?
True. They would have a major hissy fit if a Democratic president behaved that way, and they have a talent for projecting their own vices onto their opponents l.
When a Democrat is president their conjured-up "Major Questions Doctrine" applies: that the president cannot do anything without specific, detailed authorization from Congress. We saw this when Biden was president.
Likely, but the slim margins they sometimes win by also likely come from the far-left attacking their own party.
The idea that most or hardly any moderate Dems are anything like the GOP, who the left call "corporate Dems" is complete nonsense and can cause some who become disillusioned hearing that false claim to stay home.
If you divide a political party, you will almost always lose, especially if a wing of a party runs a 3rd party candidate against you.
This was the case for Hillary (Stein and Sanders), Al Gore (Ralph Nader), Bush Sr (Ross Perot) and Taft (Teddy Roosevelt as a 3rd party Bull Moose) etc.
Divide and conquer I guess. I sometimes wonder if the GOP help fan the far-left conspiracies when they arise to help themselves win.
It seems so funny now that Al Gore was not considered "liberal enough" by the far-left.
Well, it would be funny if not for the fact that we seem to be reaching climate tipping points already and may be doomed.
Al Gore would have done a lot more than Bush to address that problem a lot earlier (once again the fault of a conservative court as well)
I sometimes wonder how much progress could have been made if not for progressives and their purity test. It sometimes seems odd that progress is in the name progressive.
If they were the same, Lisa Cook would have lost her job at the Federal Reserve. E. Jean Carrolls' judgment would have been overturned and they would have decided to prevent absentee ballots from being counted after the election date.....I admit they're pretty close but not the same.
Pulte signaled the campaign would continue. In a social-media post, he repeated an assertion he has made in recent weeks: “I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud.”
For me,these concepts are rather too close for comfort. The unitary executive may not be a literal dictatorship, but it undermines the separation of powers.
Yes, it also makes one wonder what SCOTUS will do if Trump makes them somewhat irrelevant at some point, but by then it will be too late.
This also applies to Catholics, because at some point, the Christian Nationalists will not include them either as things get narrower and narrower in what they consider acceptable.
I do not think it a coincidence that Trump attacked the Pope as other leaders are a threat to them, especially religious leaders.
They’re cornered and friendless and they know it. They’re aware that ICC can prosecute them on behalf of Venezuela even though the US isn’t a member. They’re aware that states rights will trump (pun intended) most of their petty attempts at autocracy, at least in some parts of the country. Six states have misprision laws on the books that could result in the arrest of the lot of them. History books are full of tyrants but we remember the heroes. Generations from now, our descendants will be living in peace, breathing clean air, and protecting the planet and all of its inhabitants because of good seeds being planted and tended. The world is watching us. Wake up, DNC. We shouldn’t have to do this work without you.
There is next to no chance the Democratic party of Handwringers would touch the Supreme Court, or change any of the other misbegotten things that Tumpty has done to dismantle the country. " We must be gentle, there are nervous people watching."
But there is a much simpler way to remove this Supreme Court and all the damage done. That is to rewrite the Constitution to fit the new country formed when those states who qualify form a new government for themselves and let the knuckle draggers have their own country to ruin. They will be at a startling financial disadvantage , just as they were when they tried to take over during the Civil War. Even after they reinstitute slavery they will not be able to replace the money they currently receive from the taxes collected from Blue states.
They favor the unitary executive only in support of their white supremacist intentions. If Obama, for example, were president, their decisions would be different.
Actually George III very much wasn't a unitary executive. I suggest you read up on England's glorious revolution sometime which firmly put power with the parliament. Way back in 1689 following the overthrow of King James II, the Earl of Shaftesbury state, "The Parliament of England is that supreme and absolute power, which gives life and motion to the English government". A bill of rights that same year set up a constitutional monarchy established parliamentary sovreignty.
This is true. It was Parliament who came up with the bills taxing American colonists with the expense of maintaining Britain’s overseas empire, and as a dutiful constitutional sovereign, George III gave royal assent to Parliament’s legislation. James II was exiled in 1688 because he failed to learn from the experience of his father Charles I and found himself in exile with his family at the court of his first cousin Louis XIV. James II thought he could govern without Parliament, but found he could not.
I have, and I still think George was the ring leader. And, our Constitution gives the major power to the Article I branch - Congress and you know how that has worked out.
It worked reasonably well for nearly 250 years, until Donald Trump came down that escalator and began his campaign of peddling fear and hatred -- of liberals, of immigrants, and of anyone who wasn't just like members of his base -- to persuade the worst of this nation to vote him into office as president. His first term was bad, but it only set the stage for his second, by which time Project 2025 had been composed by a team of traitors to the U.S. Constitution, including many former members of his cabinet, to serve as a blueprint for shredding the Constitution and destroying our democracy. Trump's observation of authoritarian leaders and mob bosses had shown him how to get his way with corporations, corrupt foreign governments, billionaires, and Congressional Republicans. The last, along with his appointment of three Federalist Society nominees to the Supreme Court during his first term (May Mitch McConnell rot in hell for that!), essentially gave him control of all three branches of government. This did not happen during the four years between his two terms; it was the result of planning that had been in the works since the Reagan presidency. It may take the country just as long to reinstate all the Constitutional rights that have been overturned by SCOTUS and to establish guardrails against another authoritarian takeover of our government -- assuming responsible, patriotic candidates are voted into office who have the strength of will and of character to take on that gargantuan task.
So far, I like what I hear coming out of the mouths of this new generation of Democrats. We all have to get behind them and support them the best that we can!
King George most likely had bipolar disorder. I think Trump's malignant narcissism, while sharing some characteristics with the manic phase of BPD, is more dangerous because he lacks ethics or morals and bases his decisions entirely on how he can profit, enhance his image (by his definition of enhancement), or hurt his perceived enemies.
Plus, George III was a German trying to rule only a century after the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. He and his advisers were probably more mindful of the potential backlash against pushing the English too far. Trump and his minions, on the other hand, have no relatively recent American historical events to give them pause and even if they did, they aren’t the type to study history and learn from it.
The problem for the American colonies (as they were then) was that they were too far removed to be represented adequately and weren't being given enough say in their affairs. Arbitrary rule by govenors, however or whoever appointed them 1000s of miles away, was the issue.
I think of Thomas Hutchinson, who was the royal Governor of Massachusetts before the Revolution. The colonists detested him because of his eagerness to impose taxes and decrees they hated. Interestingly enough, he was also a descendant of Anne Hutchinson. Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop expelled Anne Hutchinson and her family in a religious dispute.
This is like their whole small govt idea - that basically we should not have all these agencies. It is fundamentally libertarian - we don't need to police anything for individuals. Private property needs to be protected by contract laws and the military - that's it.
I hope they like worthless securities, poisonous food and medications as well as heavy air and water pollution, because that will be what they’ll get is they abolish administrative agencies. Business cannot be trusted to regulate itself.
Unitary executive is just new speak for dictator or tyrant. It's certainly not a theory - calling it that is another aggrandizement of dictatorship. It is a preference, and taste is indisputable, in no way amenable to scientific testing. It's the inane preference of arrogant, insular uber-rich people who want ultimate power, believing that they deserve it.
Thank you Ronald Reagan, for initiating the slide back into the gross income inequality of the Gilded Age. Good government rests on the philosophy of doing the most good for the most people, and democracy is a fne system for delivering on that philosphy.
Insurrection happened on January 6, 2021, but the violations of (18 U.S. Code § 2383) continued into 2025 and 2026 by Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court. According to the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383), a felony crime is committed by “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office”. For years, six justices on the Supreme Court led by John Roberts have engaged in a rebellion against the laws of the United States including the Constitution and have been working with their decisions to assist in the installation of a lawless fascist autocracy with a power unlimited dictator as president who has immunity for official acts - but felony criminal insurrection is not an official act. If Democrats get elected in 2026 and 2028, they MUST enforce the law against insurrection and arrest, prosecute, convict and jail Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court.
This was all foreseeable when the USSC decided to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's decision and allowed Trump to stay on the ballot there when it was clear he engaged in an insurrection against the US government to overturn the results of an election.
Read "Sweeping Section Three Under the Rug", Volume 138 Harvard Law Review Number 3, January 2025, available online. All SCOTUS did was to say that a state may not exclude a candidate for federal office from a ballot on account of 14th Amendment, Sec. 3.
They did not reverse or vacate the Colorado judgement that DJT is an insurrectionist, and Profs Baude and Paulsen note that DJT remains an insurrectionist, ineligible to hold office, unless and until 2/3 of both houses of Congress remove the disability.
Thank you that clarification which I had guessed was the case. So now the law has to be enforced. If the Dems take the house they should impeach and demand the Constitution and federal law 2383 be enforced or by Republicans in the Senate voting to convict.
No, you impeach a president. He is not now lawfully, constitutionally, the president. Put it to a vote, in both houses, to remove the insurrectionist's disability under Section 3. Failing 2/3 votes in each house, he must vacate the office. Everything he does and has done since he assumed the office is void or voidable, as he remains a constitutionally-barred insurrectionist.
We watched it unfold in real time. DJT was a participant in an attempt to negate an election and remain in office. In granting putative pardons to the insurrectionist mob, he has given aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution, further predicates sustaining and emphasizing his disability to serve. The Colorado adjudication was a full and fair judicial adversarial proceeding, finding him barred. Even if you do not wish to credit that court decision, believe your own eyes, ears and reason. He is no more eligible under Sec. 3 than was Jefferson Davis.
I believe if it can be said Roberts ushered in the climate for a fascist autocracy, it can also be said he has fascist behavior himself. Would the label Nazi fit him and the other 5 who vote as he does?
In 2026, we have a populace in this land who need to decide if they are still part of the American Experiment based on enlightenment thinking and virtue. Clearly the leadership in place has given up both. The question is: do we, who have been entered here, abandon all hope? In this world enveloped by a dystopian fog propagated by a monied elite and a failed education system, is it possible to change the arc of history? I will not give up hope and would love to find actions outside the echo chamber of our communication. This being 2026 (but closer to 1984 than even 1984 was), I expect somewhere there is a site for people to bet on the outcome, and somebody with his thumb on the scale of the world's future.
I believe the prosecutor re Jan 6 didnt charge Trump with insurrection. I didnt hear his explanation. Obviously he either didnt believe he had a strong basis and/or there were political reasons.
Actually in the case of the Supreme Court and Federalist Society … I don’t think it’s about evangelicals but radical conservative Catholics (think: a return to the Crusades and Inquisition).
How these vile evangelical and catholic factions will battle it out for control — plus go against the tech broligarchs who wanna divide and rule the world …
Jesuit magazine America stated that white Roman Catholics were courted by 47 and helped him win. What did that look like, given the hierarchy? If fringe right wing clergy directed parishioners to vote in a certain way, it threatens the tax-exempt status of the entire RC church.
The tax exempt entities are not supposed to support politicians rule is a total laugh. Even though hundreds are found violating the rule each year, practically no action is ever taken. Especially by the Trump IRS.
I’m a career social worker. Should I ever require hospice, it won’t be in a RC facility. They follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Roman Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs). If a patient's advance directives directly conflict with these moral and theological teachings, the hospice will not comply. I personally know of a case where a brain dead woman was on life support for 3 years because she was mistakenly taken to a religious hospital after her catastrophic stroke. The attending doc convinced her husband that, despite her advance directive allowing natural death, he should have her intubated instead. He did and she lingered in that limbo state for three years. We’ll never know if she had locked in syndrome and could hear every unkind word from overstretched aides, or if she just had an itch. I can’t imagine a more nightmarish existence. What an irony. https://kffhealthnews.org/aging/catholic-directive-may-thwart-end-of-life-wishes/
Have you studied the history of The Catholic Church; there has long been a branch of it that has condemned freedom of religion; free speech; democracy; look up what The Pope in 1870 said were anathema; democracy; a free press; etc.; and he was being pushed to be named a saint. For most of Catholic history; The Church has supported tyranny.
You are taking about the pre Vatican II Church. There are sedevacantists and trads who behave this way. Pius IX had a major hissy fit over losing the Papal States to a newly unified Italy. That is why he became a thoroughgoing reactionary. The Vatican and Mussolini’s government settled their differences over their 1929 Concordat, which gave the Church special privileges in Italy. Pope Leo XIV would hardly endorse Pius IX. Personally, I don’t favor the church’s canonizing Pius IX, Josemaría Escrivá, or John Paul II.
Plus the fact that the RC church has paid approximately $6 billion (yep, Billion) to the victims of its sexual abuse. It appears to be quite evil, IMO.
Gorsuch isn’t Catholic now, he became an Episcopalian. Sonia Sotomayor is Catholic. I am Catholic and don’t vote Republican, because I don’t share their dubious values.
I had not seen any media reports about Gorsuch switching religions; thanks for the information; but I doubt he has changed his views on imposing religion on society.
As I stated in another response; there is a very authoritarian strain of Catholicism as well as a liberal one; which is represented by the last two Popes. The 1870 encyclical against almost every aspect of the American Constitution has never to my knowledge been officially condemned by a subsequent and different Pope. Steve Bannon claims it as a reason for his condemnation of the current and last Popes.
We are lucky that most/ many Catholics, like most/ many Moslems do not actually want to impose their religion on others as historically their religions have
And Protestants have been just as bad in the past. Luther, Calvin and The Pope all agreed Servetius deserved death from Calvin for saying the heart pumped blood and their should be freedom of religion.
The white Christian Nationalists are a very dangerous lot. They mistakenly believe all Muslims are Islamists (they aren’t,) and while the numbers of Muslim immigrants and native born Muslims have grown, their numbers are far smaller than those of white Christian Nationalists. White Christian Nationalists view all Muslims as potential religious and political rivals.
I remember Vatican II and the subsequent liberalization of Catholicism. I went to alternative masses, that had guitars and popular songs instead of a hymnal!
They're BS Catholic. I'M Catholic, and those people have hearts full of hatred of the poor and greed for themselves. Not exactly Christlike. They're fake Catholics.
They are anti Vatican II; anti the last two Popes; but very much in the views of The 1870 Pope. Very much in The Grand Inquistidor tradition and view. Certainly not Christlike; very Cheap Grace.
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That is deeply problematic:
- the Supreme Court rulings are, as Paul Krugman says explicitly, a major step on the path towards illiberal centralised power. The US is suffering an attack on democracy that has nothing to do with ‘White evangelical supremacy’. Readers ought to see beyond this simplification. Instead of chatterati comments such as this, US Americans should be demonstrating in huge numbers across all 50 states.
- if US Americans continue to chit-chat with wit, continue to carry out their daily lives, but do not stop the capture and theft of political power, democracy in the US as you have enjoyed it will end: you will fall into the grouping of ‘formerly democratic states’.
- please stop asking, ‘what should we do?’. Paul Krugman’s language is explicit: today’s rulings must not be allowed to pass. Get up from your keypads and do something: anything and everything, but stop chatting and get on with doing. There are limits to tolerance, the US passed this quite a while ago.
Out here, in the rest of the world, your good name is taking a beating.
But that’s as nothing to what you will have to face if you fail to stop the steady downward slide of US as it is happening, uncontested by so many Americans. Life in the US will be very different, and uncomfortable, if you let this happen. Blood and guts today, or tears and oppression tomorrow? You can’t avoid this choice now.
There's a particularly awful antediluvian subset of American Catholics, like Alito*, Roberts, Amy Coathanger Barrett and pretty much anybody who converted to Catholicism as an adult (JD Vance), that effectively overlaps the worst of the American evangelicals. They're mute on the Church's pedophile priest conspiracy yet intensely champion the "rights" of a brainless developing creature over the lives of girls and women, and support patriarchy in general.
They like the idea of a White, Christian dictatorship. They’re not making rulings based on the law. They’re twisting the law to justify rule by facists and racists.
Remember when reichwingers were screaming about an activist court legislating from the bench? They've gone awfully silent in the face of a truly activist court legislating from the bench. Hypocrisy is the GOP's calling card.
Is now a good time to point out that were it not for the FDA & all of those case/control epidemiological trials, this president, Donald, would have died as the result of his own decisions (by his own hand) from Covid during the Pandemic?
Nothing comes between Americans and their disdain for taking uncomfortable actions.
Deleting SM accounts, canceling AI subscriptions, sustained economic boycotts of Trump-supporting companies, sustained protests in the streets (not one unfocused half-day protest every 4 months), real support for non-establishment Democrats, constant pressure on elected officials (letters, calls, town halls).
Everything will continue to worsen, and the pace will accelerate after the midterms, especially if the Democrats barely win the House and lose the Senate (as is likely).
If people want to hope for the best, snd continue to allow fascism to be cemented, there will be no recourse and no options when it directly impacts "your" life.
This is exactly what pre-nazi Germany was like. Strong stock market, lots of inflation, people not happy, rights being taken away, whole classes of people being singled out for quite poorly managed and unlawful persecution and prosecution, out of work and/or underemployed, yet no organized resistance to whatshisname because there weren't bullets flying and the members of the abusive party were family members of a lot of potential protesters.
I started pointing out the parallels to 1930s Germany in 2019, with predictable denial and outrage.
I even started sharing chapter numbers on SM from “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to show how jarringly precise the comparisons were.
I don't know whether people believe that post-Trump there is any possibility of a Democratic America, with rotted institutions, an economy resting on AI/crypto/housing bubbles, corrupted media, controlled opposition, and a wildly anti-pluralistic, anti-Constitutional SCOTUS, but absent massive structural reform, the US will continue its free fall.
They decide the political result they want to see and create some of the most laughable legal logic to support it.
For example, in Citizens United the SC held that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption on the erroneous assumption that the money wouldn’t be under the control of any single candidate or party. They also assumed that existing transparency rules would require all the new spending they were permitting to be fully transparent, allowing voters to appropriately evaluate the messages targeting them, even though the decision did the exact opposite.
Even the Lisa Cook ruling isn't as good as it seems. The court said that she didn't have a chance to defend herself, make a counterargument, etc. They court did NOT say that Trump could never get rid of her. All he has to do now is have some sort of show "trial" with the final verdict known well in advance. Then he can say, See? She couldn't prove she wasn't lying on her mortgage application, so I'm getting rid of her. And it will look and sound as if he is following "the rules" for getting rid of a Fed member.
I think, the fact that she applied for the mortgage almost 2 years before she was accepted formally on the Fed would make that pretty difficult. Congress vetted her thoroughly and they said, "No problem here, Lisa. We want you on this court."
VILE ,BREAKING OF AMERICA'S ECONOMY,RACIST,VIOLENT TREATMENT OF ANYONE THAT IS NOT WHITE CHRISTIAN ,$$ AND GREED IS THE WAY OF TODAY 🫣. WAKE UP TO REALITY FOR THE REST OF HUMANITY 🙏🏼☯️
You totally misunderstood - but I cannot wait to see the legalistic knot they will have to tie themselves in when (hopefully) a Democrat is elected.
But it is indeed what they were put there to do and it's working quite well for them and the guy who put three of them on that bench thanks to the people who elected him (twice now). Save your opprobrium for them. And we don't need all caps and hands in prayer to make a point.
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, they could have slowed things down during the DT presidency given the corruption and incompetence, but, their zealousness for unbridled business and profiteering is a tenet of faith, not law or social responsibility. Given this direction, it is highly likely that China will become dominate in trade and policy. The plus side of that is they, unlike us, believe in science. Ji, unlike DT, is not stupid or completely self serving.
This is exactly the right read of the ruling. There is no more rule of law if precedent can be discarded at the whim of any court, and any regulation can be rescinded — or created — at the whim of the “president” (actually, now, king). Unfortunately many people, including “moderate” Democrats and what used to pass for the press, will downplay it, while the robber barons take full advantage. We have now moved back to the late 19th century, and if someone doesn’t do something soon, we’ll be back in the pre-Civil War days and rapidly on our way to the dark ages.
I wish you Americans would stop calling Trump a “king”. There are several constitutional monarchies in Europe and their kings, or queens, behave nothing like Trump. You would have to go back to the 17th century to find a British king with executive power. Trump is a dictator.
Kings resonate with Americans because we fought for our independence against the rule of a king. So to now ask the question - why would we submit to a king now when we didn't then? That said, you are right that it is an authoritarian style of governing very different from a constitutional monarchy.
Cute. You might want to debate that dictator thing with @Bruce. But can we agree on the 18th century, you know, the last time America had a king? Also, this is, or should be, a cautionary tale. We survived this long as a republic because all our previous presidents had a shred of decency, Congress acted like a legislative body, and the Supreme Court contained serious jurists who wanted to preserve and extend rights rather than trample them. Now none is true — and it could happen in a constitutional monarchy too.
One of the loudest ways to speak up is to withhold federal taxes when it is time to pay in 2027. Starve the government. We need to be as willing to fight and die for our children and country as our founders did. It was not a walk in the park for them either.
An even better way to protest is to quit buying anything from the oligarchs' companies that are funding Trump and cooperating with him and from companies that are identified as "Republican" supporters.
That means buying nothing from Amazon.com, nothing from the Koch brothers companies, Georgia Pacific & nearly all paper products that are not labeled recycled. Target for caving.
Buying from local business, instead of national companies is a good, positive step. So is buying used products.
I don't care, if the local business owners are Republicans, they're not billionaires who're spending millions to fund the corruption.
A small group of billionaires hold more than you realize. Even if you shop at a locally owned business how do you know from where the product they sell comes from in the long term? Unless everything you purchase is home grown or hand crafted the base product comes from elsewhere. You are suggesting we need to completely live off land and or waterways.
Yea! Join us! We're boycotting X business because they make X and X has ingredients made by X who supports....
How does that get strong enough to do any measurable damage? Exposing companies and CEOs in public? That hurts. Boycotts rarely are effective. You have to have a very focused boycott and it has to be something that really stings the other side with 50% or less participation. Otherwise, you're just hurting yourself and feeling like you're helping.
There are ways to reduce the amount the government withholds from your paychecks (I think it's by filing a new W-4). Be aware that there is a penalty of 5% of the amount you come up short if you don't withhold enough. There *are* extenuating circumstances; for example, if you didn't come up short last year and got a big raise that caused you to come up short this year, the penalty doesn't apply. If you need all the details, best check the IRS web site. As a retiree, I'm supposed to calculate the amount I need to withhold and send 1/4 of it in four times a year. I usually just pay the penalty.
Also be aware that failing to file a return usually has more serious consequences than not paying the taxes.
Some people have been known to claim extra dependents. At one time if you claimed ten or more they would make you justify it but if only nine it would be accepted & used to compute the amount taken out. Of course come April 15...
If you intend to refuse to pay income taxes next year, you'd better liquidate your holdings here in the States and move them elsewhere. If you have any assets in the U.S., the IRS will confiscate them in lieu of taxes. If *you* are still here, they will jail you.
No doubt good advice. But what about those of us without savings. Not much of a risk. The question that keeps going through my mind is what am I personally willing to sacrifice for my children, grandchildren a great grandchildren?
I sense your utter frustration with an immoral leader and an ignorant court. People are being brutalized by both. But your speaking out as a highly accomplished scholar and good human being is part of the general resistance we can all contribute to the restoration of our country on its birthday coming soon. If people refuse to surrender their autonomy to a malevolent authority we will prevent the delusional destroyers from continuing their deliberate infliction of chaos. Thank you.
In 1974, following the Nixon Watergate mess and the Saturday Nigh Massacre the national collegiate debate topic was " Resolved: That the Powers of the President be significantly curtailed." This week Vance said that Nixon did nothing wrong, it would now be a 12 hour news cycle. I suspect that by the time they overthrow the midterm elections we'll be in a full Civil War. (My case, argued with my debate team partner who went on to become a managing director at Morgan while I got a PhD in Economics) was "Presidents should no longer be allowed to appoint Attornies General.
Well, it was the "resolution" for the entire collegiate season. And sometimes you are on the side of supporting it and sometimes you are assigned to take down that side over the course of the weekend. We won lots more than we lost, but we didn't always win. College (and high school) debate is an amazing experience. You learn to assemble evidence, refute point by point, and expect the unexpected.
It costs over $1 billion USD to bring a drug to market. Do you want to take a $1 billion USD gamble with a crooked FDA who only favors the drug companies that make the appropriate bribes to Trump??? Ridiculous!!!
The Supreme Court’s name is wrong. They’re not Supreme Court. It’s closer to the Klan Kourt. Things tend to move slowly, fortunately. Will a new Congress at least keep the decisions at bay? God, I hope so.
Thank you for the title. The Musk army turned loose. Climate change in the hands of idiots. Mother Nature wins. Starvation, bankruptcy. Now I’ll read. Then I’ll resist with another 10 GOTV postcards to FL voters.
We may be saying there is no climate change, but rest of the world believes. Trump is actually good in the fight against climate change. He's promoting the use of renewables by the Iran War. It's not intentional, but it's working.
"Shithole country" is a matter of degree, but for decades we've been the worst industrialized country on earth (no matter how many politicians say that we are the greatest). The lack of universal health coverage, the state of public transportation and public education, workers' rights and vacations, factory farming, the level of greenhouse gases, traffic-related deaths -- you name it, we're the worst.
You can win the Senate, the House, the presidency - as long as 6 unelected right wing toadies remain on the Supreme Court with lifetime appointments, it's all for naught.
I somewhat disagree. If the Democrats win both houses they can do a lot to rein in the USSC. They can pass ethics rules, term limits, prevent The Fat Flatulent Felon from getting anymore USSC appointments and prevent from filling other Federal judicial vacancies. They can also prevent unqualified appointments to agencies too. They can also pass a law to expand the USSC but wouldn't do that until Trump is out of office and we get a Democratic president.
Yes, the Democrats could do all those things, but will they have the courage? Look at how upset the Establishment Democrats are by New York voting for three congresspeople who call themselves "socialists." I say "call themselves" not because I think that they are not, but because I think that it doesn't matter whether they are, since they'll vote with the Democrats. Too many Democrats value working with people "across the aisle" more than preventing evil.
I also should have added the Democrats have a big problem because many voters are turning against Israel for valid reasons ie their genocide. I believe the NYC elections had a lot to say about this issue and it's why the mainstream Democrats are running scared and/or trying to stop this more progressive "socialist" movement. Personally I feel this new movement is refreshing and long overdue because Israel has not been a good partner now for a long time. This is not anti-semitism. Instead it's anti-genocide and ethnic cleansing as a means to an end or a valid tactic against a perceived enemy.
The treatment of Israel or whether their war is "genocide" or not, is not our call. We can't have the Dem platform be "ditch Israel". If Dems do that, they will lose. Radical positions on foreign wars are not going to help Dems. Stealing from the rich is still stealing. It's not going to work like that. Socialism isn't going to help Dems either. Get a crazy Left enough platform and people will start picking Trump as the lesser of two evils. He's not the lesser of two evils. He's evil he lies and he steals on a scale that we've never seen. I would vote for a MODERATE Republican, but I really only see one and he's not running for anything. There are Dems I'd vote for too...but they're not socialists and they're not letting anger turn them into Left Wing populists. I want to see Fed spending get to a surplus and stay there for 10 years. I want to see the overpaid defense industry making effective and affordable weapons for the US so that we can defend ourselves without bankrupting the country. They've been putting new software on old weapons and charging triple. We're looking a little silly out there defending against cheap drones with $2M+ missiles. Why aren't we helping Ukraine? Why aren't we learning from them about drone tech?
Israel's acts of genocide have already been called out by the ICC and Amnesty International and bodies in the UN among just a few I know of. Bibi can't travel to most ICC member countries without being under arrest. Yes, it is our call because the Leahy Act prohibits the US. from selling them weapons of war so we have been violating out own laws.
I agree with you that a lot of Democratic voters won't agree with this progressive position but allowing Israel to destroy our country by fighting the wars they provoke isn't an option either. Israel provoked us into attacking Iraq and now Iran. They also fought against Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and worked to undermine it.
I agree with you on the waste of money spent on weapons of war and the need to see investment mostly with cheaper options like drones and cheaper missile defense systems.
I don't consider "left wing populism" to be a negative term for younger voters that will be affecting our elections now and into the future. Of course this term won't sell very well in the deep red states but I have written off those states a long time ago except for smaller gains.
What won't work is packaging the same old tired slogans about doing something without explaining how you can achieve those goals.
You're talking about an enemy who hides behind its own civilians to avoid capture or attack. How is a war to be conducted if one side hides in this way? The instance of Churchill keeping score of how many French innocents were killed during the D-day activities was given in the article and I think it applies here. I'm really confused about the term "genocide" and even "war crime". I thought genocide meant killing a group because of their genes... (like Jews in WWII) just because they are jews. ...or blacks or any race or creed. Houthis vs Hutus is a classic because it was a nasty war between two factions who were essentially the same. They were both conditioned to hate the other one by the French. All of these seem quite different from what Israel is doing. They is getting guerrilla fighters hiding in homes, hospitals, schools, underground etc because, if you don't, they will attack you viciously tomorrow. They have to be stopped or war will be unending. Why can't we all just get along?
I worry about that a lot too since both my Democratic Senators fall into that category of trying to work with corrupt and cowardly Republicans and brag about those efforts versus doing anything about attacking the evil and even Trump in order to save democracy. I also worry that the Democrats have a real Fetterman problem so they will need to win the Senate by more than one member too. I put this problem another way: They campaigned in 2024 trying to assuage voters they cared about the price of eggs and meat being too high but weren't able or willing to explain why that it had nothing to do with the Biden Administration. They were unable to defend an otherwise stellar economic recovery under Biden. They ran from their parties own accomplishments on the economy in preventing a prolonged recession. The US economy under Biden during Covid outpaced the recovery in all the advanced countries. And even inflation came down a lot too and wages increased more than inflation did. In other words these wishy washy Democrats chose to try and get along with voters who really needed a better education and not just their sympathy.
Ultimately packing the court just kicks the can down the road. We need a fundamental rewrite of the court. I have an idea, posted as a note, but there are a lot of other ideas as well.
I don't object to a fundamental rewrite of the Court (depending upon what it does, of course), but, for now, let's kick the can down the road. The next Democratic president should appoint four additional members to give us a 7-6 majority. I also hope that Thomas and Alito do a Ginsburg; that is, consider themselves irreplaceable and then die (or resign because of illness) when a Democratic president holds office.
I should add that appointing four additional justices would require legislation, and the term "packing the Court" developed such a bad reputation when Roosevelt tried it that I don't expect enough Democrats in Congress to have the courage to do it.
you increase the # of seats on SCOTUS to atleast 13, set term limits and remove any means of accepting dark money…end Citizens United. THAT MUST BE THE FOCUS OF DEM VOTERS.Nothing else matters now.
I can only hope the lawyers don’t think it as terrible as you do, but you’re a smart guy and you don’t necessarily have to be a lawyer to see the wider implications of something like this.
the lawyers are saying this is very bad. Another death nail to democracy. You basically have a king now. Suggest listen to Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin on her broadcast today. It's very bad
That was my first take on reading Paul’s column while I was so laying in bed this morning. I have since read About 20 newsletters on Substack about the whole thing. So yes, I do know that it’s very bad and I don’t need to add another person’s take but thank you for the suggestion
It's darker now than classic "noir." The lines above are inspired by these lines from "Out of the Past " (1947): "' It was was hot in Taxco. You say to yourself, 'How hot can it get?' Then in Acapulco you find out'"'
In the early 2000’s I took a job at The College of William and Mary with an organization that was seeking to build bridges between science, public policy and law. They understood then that this is how it works best. SCOTUS just dumped on that concept leaving science and policy out of the equation. I do not understand.
And yet, most of us, and all of the media, refer to that lot as 'conservative'. That term is now an empty signifier. The Republicans on the Court are not there on account of their judicial temperament and a record of thoughtful decisions. Indeed, if they were in the business of working as private arbitrators, they would starve, as no competent advocate would agree to have any of them as the neutral deciding a dispute. Rather, they all came through a Republican farm system, having demonstrated their loyalty for decades. Example: the number directly engaged in stealing the 2000 election as boots on the ground, so to speak, to prevent a Florida vote count that might favor Gore. Now they are tossing a century of precedent regarding the administrative agencies, quite radical in sweep and scope. We must understand that there has been a project, of long-game duration, to reverse the 20th Century reforms of American governance, targeting achievements of the Progressive era, the New Deal, the Great Society and the Civil Rights movement. They are not conservatives, not inspired by Burke or Kirk, but counter-revolutionaries, enemies of our democratic republic. They should be regarded as such, and we should not surrender to them, in advance, on any point where they might rule in future.
They have destroyed the dignity and credibility of the Court, following an American iteration of the"leader principle". Afford them no respect, out of habit or hopefulness.
White evangelical supremacy syndrome in action
There is also their corresponding belief in the unitary executive idea, which to me is entirely unconstitutional.
Roberts has fulfilled his life's mission to implment the unitary executive idea since he worked for Reagan.
Roberts and all of the conservative members of the Court appear to support the Federalist Society view that democracy doesn't work very well and we need an autocratic form of government. If they *don't* believe that, they certainly don't demonstrate it very well.
Right, because an autocrat like Trump with his multiple wives and six bankruptcies and stunning ignorance is ·such· an improvement.
But Project 2025, Russell Vought, Mike Johnson, Samuel Alito and their fanatic religiosity, combined with the desire for unchecked, "permanent" political power (scare quotes because sooner or later everyone loses power) with the Epstein Class, folded into white male supremacy is the problem - not Trump.
They're winning.
Yeah....
I think I'm going to go cry now.
He has indeed at the destruction of the Republic. The Robert’s Supreme Court with its July 1, 2024 ruling that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts within their core constitutional powers, and its decisions in the last 18 months supporting and enabling a narcissistic psychopath president in his ongoing coup of our Republic is outrageous.
Dred Scott vs Sanford in 1857 and Plessy V Ferguson in 1896 challenged our country but we, Congress responded !
Unfortunately that was before there were 6 justices that have collaborated with Trump to destroy the separation of powers and support his coup of our Republic. Congress Republicans, Democrats and we the people its time to reassert our power.
I guess when Nixon said, "If the President does it, it's not illegal," he was way ahead of his time. Turns out he was right as attested to by the Supreme Court.
Their rage at Watergate was one of the things that inspired them toward things like Project 2025.
They were really angry at FDR and what he did and they attacked in 1971 after the Powell memo with a massively funded and organized campaign to end democracy and steal wealth from 95% of Americans and the Democrats were asleep for the last 55 years
I'd say that the unitary executive is probably a side project in support of his true passion, the elimination of the VRA. But that's splitting hairs. Does he want to disenfranchise the "wrong" people because he wants a dictator, or does he want a dictator to disenfranchise the "wrong" people?
I wonder what he'll think when AOC i is president?
Mamdani isn't a natural-born citizen of the United States
Well then AOC
Works for me.
Their unitary executive ideology applies only if the executive is a right wing Republican.
True. They would have a major hissy fit if a Democratic president behaved that way, and they have a talent for projecting their own vices onto their opponents l.
When a Democrat is president their conjured-up "Major Questions Doctrine" applies: that the president cannot do anything without specific, detailed authorization from Congress. We saw this when Biden was president.
If they have their way, there will never be another Democratic President. That's what they're working towards.
Without the Southern Strategy, a Republican campaign staple since 1968, there would have been no Republican presidents in the past six decades.
Likely, but the slim margins they sometimes win by also likely come from the far-left attacking their own party.
The idea that most or hardly any moderate Dems are anything like the GOP, who the left call "corporate Dems" is complete nonsense and can cause some who become disillusioned hearing that false claim to stay home.
If you divide a political party, you will almost always lose, especially if a wing of a party runs a 3rd party candidate against you.
This was the case for Hillary (Stein and Sanders), Al Gore (Ralph Nader), Bush Sr (Ross Perot) and Taft (Teddy Roosevelt as a 3rd party Bull Moose) etc.
Divide and conquer I guess. I sometimes wonder if the GOP help fan the far-left conspiracies when they arise to help themselves win.
It seems so funny now that Al Gore was not considered "liberal enough" by the far-left.
Well, it would be funny if not for the fact that we seem to be reaching climate tipping points already and may be doomed.
Al Gore would have done a lot more than Bush to address that problem a lot earlier (once again the fault of a conservative court as well)
I sometimes wonder how much progress could have been made if not for progressives and their purity test. It sometimes seems odd that progress is in the name progressive.
Didn't you mean their belief in dictatorship? :)
The unitary executive is a form of dictatorship.
If they were the same, Lisa Cook would have lost her job at the Federal Reserve. E. Jean Carrolls' judgment would have been overturned and they would have decided to prevent absentee ballots from being counted after the election date.....I admit they're pretty close but not the same.
Give it time. They're not done yet.
From the WSJ:
Pulte signaled the campaign would continue. In a social-media post, he repeated an assertion he has made in recent weeks: “I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud.”
For me,these concepts are rather too close for comfort. The unitary executive may not be a literal dictatorship, but it undermines the separation of powers.
Yes, it also makes one wonder what SCOTUS will do if Trump makes them somewhat irrelevant at some point, but by then it will be too late.
This also applies to Catholics, because at some point, the Christian Nationalists will not include them either as things get narrower and narrower in what they consider acceptable.
I do not think it a coincidence that Trump attacked the Pope as other leaders are a threat to them, especially religious leaders.
"And then they came for me..."
More than that, it's downright treasonous.
They’re cornered and friendless and they know it. They’re aware that ICC can prosecute them on behalf of Venezuela even though the US isn’t a member. They’re aware that states rights will trump (pun intended) most of their petty attempts at autocracy, at least in some parts of the country. Six states have misprision laws on the books that could result in the arrest of the lot of them. History books are full of tyrants but we remember the heroes. Generations from now, our descendants will be living in peace, breathing clean air, and protecting the planet and all of its inhabitants because of good seeds being planted and tended. The world is watching us. Wake up, DNC. We shouldn’t have to do this work without you.
And we sure ARE doing it without them!
There is next to no chance the Democratic party of Handwringers would touch the Supreme Court, or change any of the other misbegotten things that Tumpty has done to dismantle the country. " We must be gentle, there are nervous people watching."
But there is a much simpler way to remove this Supreme Court and all the damage done. That is to rewrite the Constitution to fit the new country formed when those states who qualify form a new government for themselves and let the knuckle draggers have their own country to ruin. They will be at a startling financial disadvantage , just as they were when they tried to take over during the Civil War. Even after they reinstitute slavery they will not be able to replace the money they currently receive from the taxes collected from Blue states.
They favor the unitary executive only in support of their white supremacist intentions. If Obama, for example, were president, their decisions would be different.
George III was a unitary executive and much of the reason for the existence of the US. And he too had mental health issues.
King George’s mental health issues were inconsequential compared to Trump’s mental health issues. Also, King George could read.
Actually George III very much wasn't a unitary executive. I suggest you read up on England's glorious revolution sometime which firmly put power with the parliament. Way back in 1689 following the overthrow of King James II, the Earl of Shaftesbury state, "The Parliament of England is that supreme and absolute power, which gives life and motion to the English government". A bill of rights that same year set up a constitutional monarchy established parliamentary sovreignty.
This is true. It was Parliament who came up with the bills taxing American colonists with the expense of maintaining Britain’s overseas empire, and as a dutiful constitutional sovereign, George III gave royal assent to Parliament’s legislation. James II was exiled in 1688 because he failed to learn from the experience of his father Charles I and found himself in exile with his family at the court of his first cousin Louis XIV. James II thought he could govern without Parliament, but found he could not.
I have, and I still think George was the ring leader. And, our Constitution gives the major power to the Article I branch - Congress and you know how that has worked out.
It worked reasonably well for nearly 250 years, until Donald Trump came down that escalator and began his campaign of peddling fear and hatred -- of liberals, of immigrants, and of anyone who wasn't just like members of his base -- to persuade the worst of this nation to vote him into office as president. His first term was bad, but it only set the stage for his second, by which time Project 2025 had been composed by a team of traitors to the U.S. Constitution, including many former members of his cabinet, to serve as a blueprint for shredding the Constitution and destroying our democracy. Trump's observation of authoritarian leaders and mob bosses had shown him how to get his way with corporations, corrupt foreign governments, billionaires, and Congressional Republicans. The last, along with his appointment of three Federalist Society nominees to the Supreme Court during his first term (May Mitch McConnell rot in hell for that!), essentially gave him control of all three branches of government. This did not happen during the four years between his two terms; it was the result of planning that had been in the works since the Reagan presidency. It may take the country just as long to reinstate all the Constitutional rights that have been overturned by SCOTUS and to establish guardrails against another authoritarian takeover of our government -- assuming responsible, patriotic candidates are voted into office who have the strength of will and of character to take on that gargantuan task.
So far, I like what I hear coming out of the mouths of this new generation of Democrats. We all have to get behind them and support them the best that we can!
King George most likely had bipolar disorder. I think Trump's malignant narcissism, while sharing some characteristics with the manic phase of BPD, is more dangerous because he lacks ethics or morals and bases his decisions entirely on how he can profit, enhance his image (by his definition of enhancement), or hurt his perceived enemies.
Plus, George III was a German trying to rule only a century after the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. He and his advisers were probably more mindful of the potential backlash against pushing the English too far. Trump and his minions, on the other hand, have no relatively recent American historical events to give them pause and even if they did, they aren’t the type to study history and learn from it.
Trump is as ignorant of history, American government and the actual limits of his own power as he is of everything else.
The problem for the American colonies (as they were then) was that they were too far removed to be represented adequately and weren't being given enough say in their affairs. Arbitrary rule by govenors, however or whoever appointed them 1000s of miles away, was the issue.
I think of Thomas Hutchinson, who was the royal Governor of Massachusetts before the Revolution. The colonists detested him because of his eagerness to impose taxes and decrees they hated. Interestingly enough, he was also a descendant of Anne Hutchinson. Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop expelled Anne Hutchinson and her family in a religious dispute.
Agree completely. Unitary executive = king! Exactly what the Founders did NOT want.
This is like their whole small govt idea - that basically we should not have all these agencies. It is fundamentally libertarian - we don't need to police anything for individuals. Private property needs to be protected by contract laws and the military - that's it.
I hope they like worthless securities, poisonous food and medications as well as heavy air and water pollution, because that will be what they’ll get is they abolish administrative agencies. Business cannot be trusted to regulate itself.
Unitary executive is just new speak for dictator or tyrant. It's certainly not a theory - calling it that is another aggrandizement of dictatorship. It is a preference, and taste is indisputable, in no way amenable to scientific testing. It's the inane preference of arrogant, insular uber-rich people who want ultimate power, believing that they deserve it.
Thank you Ronald Reagan, for initiating the slide back into the gross income inequality of the Gilded Age. Good government rests on the philosophy of doing the most good for the most people, and democracy is a fne system for delivering on that philosphy.
Jared Bernstein said it best….political hacks posing as SCOTUS justices.
It aligns with the Chevron decision in some ways.
Insurrection happened on January 6, 2021, but the violations of (18 U.S. Code § 2383) continued into 2025 and 2026 by Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court. According to the federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383), a felony crime is committed by “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office”. For years, six justices on the Supreme Court led by John Roberts have engaged in a rebellion against the laws of the United States including the Constitution and have been working with their decisions to assist in the installation of a lawless fascist autocracy with a power unlimited dictator as president who has immunity for official acts - but felony criminal insurrection is not an official act. If Democrats get elected in 2026 and 2028, they MUST enforce the law against insurrection and arrest, prosecute, convict and jail Trump, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on the Supreme Court.
This was all foreseeable when the USSC decided to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's decision and allowed Trump to stay on the ballot there when it was clear he engaged in an insurrection against the US government to overturn the results of an election.
And was a 34 times convicted felon.
And how many potential felonies could there be if we knew the extent of his criminal history?
Probably thousands.
Yup!
Read "Sweeping Section Three Under the Rug", Volume 138 Harvard Law Review Number 3, January 2025, available online. All SCOTUS did was to say that a state may not exclude a candidate for federal office from a ballot on account of 14th Amendment, Sec. 3.
They did not reverse or vacate the Colorado judgement that DJT is an insurrectionist, and Profs Baude and Paulsen note that DJT remains an insurrectionist, ineligible to hold office, unless and until 2/3 of both houses of Congress remove the disability.
Thank you that clarification which I had guessed was the case. So now the law has to be enforced. If the Dems take the house they should impeach and demand the Constitution and federal law 2383 be enforced or by Republicans in the Senate voting to convict.
No, you impeach a president. He is not now lawfully, constitutionally, the president. Put it to a vote, in both houses, to remove the insurrectionist's disability under Section 3. Failing 2/3 votes in each house, he must vacate the office. Everything he does and has done since he assumed the office is void or voidable, as he remains a constitutionally-barred insurrectionist.
If trump was never the president then is there currently a president? I don't see where the 25th Amendments covers this.
How can Colorado decide who is on a national ballot? I think this is a stretch.
We watched it unfold in real time. DJT was a participant in an attempt to negate an election and remain in office. In granting putative pardons to the insurrectionist mob, he has given aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution, further predicates sustaining and emphasizing his disability to serve. The Colorado adjudication was a full and fair judicial adversarial proceeding, finding him barred. Even if you do not wish to credit that court decision, believe your own eyes, ears and reason. He is no more eligible under Sec. 3 than was Jefferson Davis.
Also, if I'm correct, Colorado only said he couldn’t be on the ballot in Colorado. Or am I wrong about that?
I believe if it can be said Roberts ushered in the climate for a fascist autocracy, it can also be said he has fascist behavior himself. Would the label Nazi fit him and the other 5 who vote as he does?
Certainly royalist or monarchist applies
In 2026, we have a populace in this land who need to decide if they are still part of the American Experiment based on enlightenment thinking and virtue. Clearly the leadership in place has given up both. The question is: do we, who have been entered here, abandon all hope? In this world enveloped by a dystopian fog propagated by a monied elite and a failed education system, is it possible to change the arc of history? I will not give up hope and would love to find actions outside the echo chamber of our communication. This being 2026 (but closer to 1984 than even 1984 was), I expect somewhere there is a site for people to bet on the outcome, and somebody with his thumb on the scale of the world's future.
I believe the prosecutor re Jan 6 didnt charge Trump with insurrection. I didnt hear his explanation. Obviously he either didnt believe he had a strong basis and/or there were political reasons.
Actually in the case of the Supreme Court and Federalist Society … I don’t think it’s about evangelicals but radical conservative Catholics (think: a return to the Crusades and Inquisition).
How these vile evangelical and catholic factions will battle it out for control — plus go against the tech broligarchs who wanna divide and rule the world …
Fasten your seatbelts. Bumpy ride. Indeed.
Jesuit magazine America stated that white Roman Catholics were courted by 47 and helped him win. What did that look like, given the hierarchy? If fringe right wing clergy directed parishioners to vote in a certain way, it threatens the tax-exempt status of the entire RC church.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/11/06/catholic-vote-trump-reaction-249204/
The tax exempt entities are not supposed to support politicians rule is a total laugh. Even though hundreds are found violating the rule each year, practically no action is ever taken. Especially by the Trump IRS.
I was working on a cwthlic dponsored nursing home at the time in a progressive city and I can tell you it was 100 % Trump, it was shocking
I’m a career social worker. Should I ever require hospice, it won’t be in a RC facility. They follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Roman Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs). If a patient's advance directives directly conflict with these moral and theological teachings, the hospice will not comply. I personally know of a case where a brain dead woman was on life support for 3 years because she was mistakenly taken to a religious hospital after her catastrophic stroke. The attending doc convinced her husband that, despite her advance directive allowing natural death, he should have her intubated instead. He did and she lingered in that limbo state for three years. We’ll never know if she had locked in syndrome and could hear every unkind word from overstretched aides, or if she just had an itch. I can’t imagine a more nightmarish existence. What an irony. https://kffhealthnews.org/aging/catholic-directive-may-thwart-end-of-life-wishes/
To quote Christopher Hitchens, “Religion poisons everything.”
The six Justices are conservative Catholic.
There seems to be nothing Catholic, conservative, or even Christian about how they have been voting.
Have you studied the history of The Catholic Church; there has long been a branch of it that has condemned freedom of religion; free speech; democracy; look up what The Pope in 1870 said were anathema; democracy; a free press; etc.; and he was being pushed to be named a saint. For most of Catholic history; The Church has supported tyranny.
You are taking about the pre Vatican II Church. There are sedevacantists and trads who behave this way. Pius IX had a major hissy fit over losing the Papal States to a newly unified Italy. That is why he became a thoroughgoing reactionary. The Vatican and Mussolini’s government settled their differences over their 1929 Concordat, which gave the Church special privileges in Italy. Pope Leo XIV would hardly endorse Pius IX. Personally, I don’t favor the church’s canonizing Pius IX, Josemaría Escrivá, or John Paul II.
Plus the fact that the RC church has paid approximately $6 billion (yep, Billion) to the victims of its sexual abuse. It appears to be quite evil, IMO.
Gorsuch isn’t Catholic now, he became an Episcopalian. Sonia Sotomayor is Catholic. I am Catholic and don’t vote Republican, because I don’t share their dubious values.
I had not seen any media reports about Gorsuch switching religions; thanks for the information; but I doubt he has changed his views on imposing religion on society.
As I stated in another response; there is a very authoritarian strain of Catholicism as well as a liberal one; which is represented by the last two Popes. The 1870 encyclical against almost every aspect of the American Constitution has never to my knowledge been officially condemned by a subsequent and different Pope. Steve Bannon claims it as a reason for his condemnation of the current and last Popes.
We are lucky that most/ many Catholics, like most/ many Moslems do not actually want to impose their religion on others as historically their religions have
And Protestants have been just as bad in the past. Luther, Calvin and The Pope all agreed Servetius deserved death from Calvin for saying the heart pumped blood and their should be freedom of religion.
The white Christian Nationalists are a very dangerous lot. They mistakenly believe all Muslims are Islamists (they aren’t,) and while the numbers of Muslim immigrants and native born Muslims have grown, their numbers are far smaller than those of white Christian Nationalists. White Christian Nationalists view all Muslims as potential religious and political rivals.
I remember Vatican II and the subsequent liberalization of Catholicism. I went to alternative masses, that had guitars and popular songs instead of a hymnal!
They're BS Catholic. I'M Catholic, and those people have hearts full of hatred of the poor and greed for themselves. Not exactly Christlike. They're fake Catholics.
They are anti Vatican II; anti the last two Popes; but very much in the views of The 1870 Pope. Very much in The Grand Inquistidor tradition and view. Certainly not Christlike; very Cheap Grace.
Dear Thys and fellow readers,
This comment is currently ‘top of the likes pile’.
That is deeply problematic:
- the Supreme Court rulings are, as Paul Krugman says explicitly, a major step on the path towards illiberal centralised power. The US is suffering an attack on democracy that has nothing to do with ‘White evangelical supremacy’. Readers ought to see beyond this simplification. Instead of chatterati comments such as this, US Americans should be demonstrating in huge numbers across all 50 states.
- if US Americans continue to chit-chat with wit, continue to carry out their daily lives, but do not stop the capture and theft of political power, democracy in the US as you have enjoyed it will end: you will fall into the grouping of ‘formerly democratic states’.
- please stop asking, ‘what should we do?’. Paul Krugman’s language is explicit: today’s rulings must not be allowed to pass. Get up from your keypads and do something: anything and everything, but stop chatting and get on with doing. There are limits to tolerance, the US passed this quite a while ago.
Out here, in the rest of the world, your good name is taking a beating.
But that’s as nothing to what you will have to face if you fail to stop the steady downward slide of US as it is happening, uncontested by so many Americans. Life in the US will be very different, and uncomfortable, if you let this happen. Blood and guts today, or tears and oppression tomorrow? You can’t avoid this choice now.
Anthony, in Scotland.
"White evangelical supremacy syndrome in action"
----
There's a particularly awful antediluvian subset of American Catholics, like Alito*, Roberts, Amy Coathanger Barrett and pretty much anybody who converted to Catholicism as an adult (JD Vance), that effectively overlaps the worst of the American evangelicals. They're mute on the Church's pedophile priest conspiracy yet intensely champion the "rights" of a brainless developing creature over the lives of girls and women, and support patriarchy in general.
______________
*No fµcking relation!
They are mostly Catholics.
What is WRONG with them?!! 😳
They like the idea of a White, Christian dictatorship. They’re not making rulings based on the law. They’re twisting the law to justify rule by facists and racists.
White, Christian MALE dictatorship. Don't forget the misogynists.
straight white christian extremist male dictatorship
Remember when reichwingers were screaming about an activist court legislating from the bench? They've gone awfully silent in the face of a truly activist court legislating from the bench. Hypocrisy is the GOP's calling card.
Yep.
To the rigged and corrupt Supreme Court: I like bananas and I like republics, but I don't like banana republics.
😂I like tin, I like pot, but I don't like tin pot dictators.
And crooks.
Is now a good time to point out that were it not for the FDA & all of those case/control epidemiological trials, this president, Donald, would have died as the result of his own decisions (by his own hand) from Covid during the Pandemic?
What is wrong with "us"??
Nothing comes between Americans and their disdain for taking uncomfortable actions.
Deleting SM accounts, canceling AI subscriptions, sustained economic boycotts of Trump-supporting companies, sustained protests in the streets (not one unfocused half-day protest every 4 months), real support for non-establishment Democrats, constant pressure on elected officials (letters, calls, town halls).
Everything will continue to worsen, and the pace will accelerate after the midterms, especially if the Democrats barely win the House and lose the Senate (as is likely).
If people want to hope for the best, snd continue to allow fascism to be cemented, there will be no recourse and no options when it directly impacts "your" life.
This is exactly what pre-nazi Germany was like. Strong stock market, lots of inflation, people not happy, rights being taken away, whole classes of people being singled out for quite poorly managed and unlawful persecution and prosecution, out of work and/or underemployed, yet no organized resistance to whatshisname because there weren't bullets flying and the members of the abusive party were family members of a lot of potential protesters.
Excellent point.
I started pointing out the parallels to 1930s Germany in 2019, with predictable denial and outrage.
I even started sharing chapter numbers on SM from “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to show how jarringly precise the comparisons were.
I don't know whether people believe that post-Trump there is any possibility of a Democratic America, with rotted institutions, an economy resting on AI/crypto/housing bubbles, corrupted media, controlled opposition, and a wildly anti-pluralistic, anti-Constitutional SCOTUS, but absent massive structural reform, the US will continue its free fall.
They're doing what they were, corruptly, put there to do. Deliver the Dominionist agenda.
Thank you, Mitch McConnell. 🤬
Is he dead yet?
No. The Devil takes care of his own.
They decide the political result they want to see and create some of the most laughable legal logic to support it.
For example, in Citizens United the SC held that independent spending could not pose a substantial risk of corruption on the erroneous assumption that the money wouldn’t be under the control of any single candidate or party. They also assumed that existing transparency rules would require all the new spending they were permitting to be fully transparent, allowing voters to appropriately evaluate the messages targeting them, even though the decision did the exact opposite.
Even the Lisa Cook ruling isn't as good as it seems. The court said that she didn't have a chance to defend herself, make a counterargument, etc. They court did NOT say that Trump could never get rid of her. All he has to do now is have some sort of show "trial" with the final verdict known well in advance. Then he can say, See? She couldn't prove she wasn't lying on her mortgage application, so I'm getting rid of her. And it will look and sound as if he is following "the rules" for getting rid of a Fed member.
I think, the fact that she applied for the mortgage almost 2 years before she was accepted formally on the Fed would make that pretty difficult. Congress vetted her thoroughly and they said, "No problem here, Lisa. We want you on this court."
‘What is wrong with them?’
What’s wrong is their loyalty and obedience to autocracy, racism and sexism.
And, while I understand your pain (Do I ever!), we must move past the shock.
The enemy has declared itself.
Please, ready yourself to do several things:
1) Call out what we all see; name it. Racism, autocracy/dictatorship, patriarchy, greed, militarism, …
Be informed and as public as you can safely manage.
2) Find trustworthy folk and groups to work with. The ACLU, League of Women Voters, SPLC, local citizen groups
that work for civil rights, state violence reduction, a union, a library, environmental organizations, etc.
There is power and encouragement in numbers and organization.
Take your pick: everything is related.
3) Create or maintain a discipline that enables you to have both a public life and a private life.
The Regime is assaulting both our public lives and our RIGHT to privacy. Keep both.
Rights are like muscle tone: use it or lose it.
4) Look for the beauty around and within you and enjoy it.
Grace and Peace to You. -bob hillenbrand
They're stacked, packed, on-the-take, and in-the-bag; that's what's wrong with them.
“Chauncey Gardiner” - “Being There”…I loved that crazy movie!
Nothing. They are doing what they were put there to do.
NOTHING ARE YOU BLIND TO THE CORRUPTION, HATRED
VILE ,BREAKING OF AMERICA'S ECONOMY,RACIST,VIOLENT TREATMENT OF ANYONE THAT IS NOT WHITE CHRISTIAN ,$$ AND GREED IS THE WAY OF TODAY 🫣. WAKE UP TO REALITY FOR THE REST OF HUMANITY 🙏🏼☯️
You totally misunderstood - but I cannot wait to see the legalistic knot they will have to tie themselves in when (hopefully) a Democrat is elected.
But it is indeed what they were put there to do and it's working quite well for them and the guy who put three of them on that bench thanks to the people who elected him (twice now). Save your opprobrium for them. And we don't need all caps and hands in prayer to make a point.
They have self-lobotomized through quasi-Christian beliefs that are a mask for, rather than a check on, their basest impulses? Just spitballing here.
As Paul Krugman has pointed out, they could have slowed things down during the DT presidency given the corruption and incompetence, but, their zealousness for unbridled business and profiteering is a tenet of faith, not law or social responsibility. Given this direction, it is highly likely that China will become dominate in trade and policy. The plus side of that is they, unlike us, believe in science. Ji, unlike DT, is not stupid or completely self serving.
How EMBARRASSING to have to live under TRUMPTY DUMPTY.The world sees him as he REALLY IS and yet,Here he is,our most despised
president still working his EVIL,SELF SERVING SELF at the cost of EVERYONE ELSE. 😒🤯🫣
They watch Fox News, and read the heritage foundation white supreamacy papers.
Just keep reaching out with the TRUTH.Try to be KIND,PATIENT,and forgiving of this GULLIBLE persons
STAY FOCUSED ON WHATS IMPORTANT to keep AMERICA FREE OF AUTOCRACY.😉☯️🇺🇸🙏🏼
Perhaps they are being blackmailed. They all have things in their past they keep hidden.
GREED 🫠👺🔥
This is exactly the right read of the ruling. There is no more rule of law if precedent can be discarded at the whim of any court, and any regulation can be rescinded — or created — at the whim of the “president” (actually, now, king). Unfortunately many people, including “moderate” Democrats and what used to pass for the press, will downplay it, while the robber barons take full advantage. We have now moved back to the late 19th century, and if someone doesn’t do something soon, we’ll be back in the pre-Civil War days and rapidly on our way to the dark ages.
I wish you Americans would stop calling Trump a “king”. There are several constitutional monarchies in Europe and their kings, or queens, behave nothing like Trump. You would have to go back to the 17th century to find a British king with executive power. Trump is a dictator.
Kings resonate with Americans because we fought for our independence against the rule of a king. So to now ask the question - why would we submit to a king now when we didn't then? That said, you are right that it is an authoritarian style of governing very different from a constitutional monarchy.
Cute. You might want to debate that dictator thing with @Bruce. But can we agree on the 18th century, you know, the last time America had a king? Also, this is, or should be, a cautionary tale. We survived this long as a republic because all our previous presidents had a shred of decency, Congress acted like a legislative body, and the Supreme Court contained serious jurists who wanted to preserve and extend rights rather than trample them. Now none is true — and it could happen in a constitutional monarchy too.
That 'someone' is you.
Caroline: What, precisely, do you suggest "someone" should do beyond voting?
SPEAK UP! Protest! Be loud and proud. Make yourself heard in every possible way.
I have ancestors who fought back and died for this democracy.
All the people who fought and died will have died in vain, if we do nothing but hope there's a free and fair election in November.
One of the loudest ways to speak up is to withhold federal taxes when it is time to pay in 2027. Starve the government. We need to be as willing to fight and die for our children and country as our founders did. It was not a walk in the park for them either.
An even better way to protest is to quit buying anything from the oligarchs' companies that are funding Trump and cooperating with him and from companies that are identified as "Republican" supporters.
That means buying nothing from Amazon.com, nothing from the Koch brothers companies, Georgia Pacific & nearly all paper products that are not labeled recycled. Target for caving.
Buying from local business, instead of national companies is a good, positive step. So is buying used products.
I don't care, if the local business owners are Republicans, they're not billionaires who're spending millions to fund the corruption.
A small group of billionaires hold more than you realize. Even if you shop at a locally owned business how do you know from where the product they sell comes from in the long term? Unless everything you purchase is home grown or hand crafted the base product comes from elsewhere. You are suggesting we need to completely live off land and or waterways.
Yea! Join us! We're boycotting X business because they make X and X has ingredients made by X who supports....
How does that get strong enough to do any measurable damage? Exposing companies and CEOs in public? That hurts. Boycotts rarely are effective. You have to have a very focused boycott and it has to be something that really stings the other side with 50% or less participation. Otherwise, you're just hurting yourself and feeling like you're helping.
aren’t federal taxes taken out of paychecks automatically? Is there a way everyone can file “Exempt” ?
There are ways to reduce the amount the government withholds from your paychecks (I think it's by filing a new W-4). Be aware that there is a penalty of 5% of the amount you come up short if you don't withhold enough. There *are* extenuating circumstances; for example, if you didn't come up short last year and got a big raise that caused you to come up short this year, the penalty doesn't apply. If you need all the details, best check the IRS web site. As a retiree, I'm supposed to calculate the amount I need to withhold and send 1/4 of it in four times a year. I usually just pay the penalty.
Also be aware that failing to file a return usually has more serious consequences than not paying the taxes.
Some people have been known to claim extra dependents. At one time if you claimed ten or more they would make you justify it but if only nine it would be accepted & used to compute the amount taken out. Of course come April 15...
If you intend to refuse to pay income taxes next year, you'd better liquidate your holdings here in the States and move them elsewhere. If you have any assets in the U.S., the IRS will confiscate them in lieu of taxes. If *you* are still here, they will jail you.
No doubt good advice. But what about those of us without savings. Not much of a risk. The question that keeps going through my mind is what am I personally willing to sacrifice for my children, grandchildren a great grandchildren?
Assuming there's more than a dozen people left in the IRS when Trump and Elon get done with them.
You first! That's just breaking the law. I'm not doing it.
I sense your utter frustration with an immoral leader and an ignorant court. People are being brutalized by both. But your speaking out as a highly accomplished scholar and good human being is part of the general resistance we can all contribute to the restoration of our country on its birthday coming soon. If people refuse to surrender their autonomy to a malevolent authority we will prevent the delusional destroyers from continuing their deliberate infliction of chaos. Thank you.
I have another name for the infamous six on the court and it is not as mild as “illegal”.
Run by a Malevolently Evil, Intentionally Uninformed, Narcissistic POS. And his Ike-minded buddies.
In 1974, following the Nixon Watergate mess and the Saturday Nigh Massacre the national collegiate debate topic was " Resolved: That the Powers of the President be significantly curtailed." This week Vance said that Nixon did nothing wrong, it would now be a 12 hour news cycle. I suspect that by the time they overthrow the midterm elections we'll be in a full Civil War. (My case, argued with my debate team partner who went on to become a managing director at Morgan while I got a PhD in Economics) was "Presidents should no longer be allowed to appoint Attornies General.
Did you win the debate?
Well, it was the "resolution" for the entire collegiate season. And sometimes you are on the side of supporting it and sometimes you are assigned to take down that side over the course of the weekend. We won lots more than we lost, but we didn't always win. College (and high school) debate is an amazing experience. You learn to assemble evidence, refute point by point, and expect the unexpected.
It costs over $1 billion USD to bring a drug to market. Do you want to take a $1 billion USD gamble with a crooked FDA who only favors the drug companies that make the appropriate bribes to Trump??? Ridiculous!!!
This is what you'll get - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal
George, I was born in 1958 and had some of these poor children in my elementary school classes!!!
The Supreme Court’s name is wrong. They’re not Supreme Court. It’s closer to the Klan Kourt. Things tend to move slowly, fortunately. Will a new Congress at least keep the decisions at bay? God, I hope so.
Klan Klown Kourt
A relative of the Klown Kabinet. Good name!!
Extreme Cult.
Supine Court
The Koup Klux Kangaroos.
This is devastating for the country, another nail in the coffin of US democracy.
Very much agreed.
Thank you for the title. The Musk army turned loose. Climate change in the hands of idiots. Mother Nature wins. Starvation, bankruptcy. Now I’ll read. Then I’ll resist with another 10 GOTV postcards to FL voters.
We may be saying there is no climate change, but rest of the world believes. Trump is actually good in the fight against climate change. He's promoting the use of renewables by the Iran War. It's not intentional, but it's working.
Yep, shithole country here we come
"Shithole country" is a matter of degree, but for decades we've been the worst industrialized country on earth (no matter how many politicians say that we are the greatest). The lack of universal health coverage, the state of public transportation and public education, workers' rights and vacations, factory farming, the level of greenhouse gases, traffic-related deaths -- you name it, we're the worst.
But we still have flush toilets, though, right?... Don't we?
Not according to DonnyJon. It seems to take him 15 flushes to dispose of a document.
Too much sh** from this administration clogging them...
I take that comment metaphorically; i.e., referring to things other than toilets.
You can win the Senate, the House, the presidency - as long as 6 unelected right wing toadies remain on the Supreme Court with lifetime appointments, it's all for naught.
I somewhat disagree. If the Democrats win both houses they can do a lot to rein in the USSC. They can pass ethics rules, term limits, prevent The Fat Flatulent Felon from getting anymore USSC appointments and prevent from filling other Federal judicial vacancies. They can also prevent unqualified appointments to agencies too. They can also pass a law to expand the USSC but wouldn't do that until Trump is out of office and we get a Democratic president.
Yes, the Democrats could do all those things, but will they have the courage? Look at how upset the Establishment Democrats are by New York voting for three congresspeople who call themselves "socialists." I say "call themselves" not because I think that they are not, but because I think that it doesn't matter whether they are, since they'll vote with the Democrats. Too many Democrats value working with people "across the aisle" more than preventing evil.
I also should have added the Democrats have a big problem because many voters are turning against Israel for valid reasons ie their genocide. I believe the NYC elections had a lot to say about this issue and it's why the mainstream Democrats are running scared and/or trying to stop this more progressive "socialist" movement. Personally I feel this new movement is refreshing and long overdue because Israel has not been a good partner now for a long time. This is not anti-semitism. Instead it's anti-genocide and ethnic cleansing as a means to an end or a valid tactic against a perceived enemy.
The treatment of Israel or whether their war is "genocide" or not, is not our call. We can't have the Dem platform be "ditch Israel". If Dems do that, they will lose. Radical positions on foreign wars are not going to help Dems. Stealing from the rich is still stealing. It's not going to work like that. Socialism isn't going to help Dems either. Get a crazy Left enough platform and people will start picking Trump as the lesser of two evils. He's not the lesser of two evils. He's evil he lies and he steals on a scale that we've never seen. I would vote for a MODERATE Republican, but I really only see one and he's not running for anything. There are Dems I'd vote for too...but they're not socialists and they're not letting anger turn them into Left Wing populists. I want to see Fed spending get to a surplus and stay there for 10 years. I want to see the overpaid defense industry making effective and affordable weapons for the US so that we can defend ourselves without bankrupting the country. They've been putting new software on old weapons and charging triple. We're looking a little silly out there defending against cheap drones with $2M+ missiles. Why aren't we helping Ukraine? Why aren't we learning from them about drone tech?
Israel's acts of genocide have already been called out by the ICC and Amnesty International and bodies in the UN among just a few I know of. Bibi can't travel to most ICC member countries without being under arrest. Yes, it is our call because the Leahy Act prohibits the US. from selling them weapons of war so we have been violating out own laws.
I agree with you that a lot of Democratic voters won't agree with this progressive position but allowing Israel to destroy our country by fighting the wars they provoke isn't an option either. Israel provoked us into attacking Iraq and now Iran. They also fought against Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and worked to undermine it.
I agree with you on the waste of money spent on weapons of war and the need to see investment mostly with cheaper options like drones and cheaper missile defense systems.
I don't consider "left wing populism" to be a negative term for younger voters that will be affecting our elections now and into the future. Of course this term won't sell very well in the deep red states but I have written off those states a long time ago except for smaller gains.
What won't work is packaging the same old tired slogans about doing something without explaining how you can achieve those goals.
You're talking about an enemy who hides behind its own civilians to avoid capture or attack. How is a war to be conducted if one side hides in this way? The instance of Churchill keeping score of how many French innocents were killed during the D-day activities was given in the article and I think it applies here. I'm really confused about the term "genocide" and even "war crime". I thought genocide meant killing a group because of their genes... (like Jews in WWII) just because they are jews. ...or blacks or any race or creed. Houthis vs Hutus is a classic because it was a nasty war between two factions who were essentially the same. They were both conditioned to hate the other one by the French. All of these seem quite different from what Israel is doing. They is getting guerrilla fighters hiding in homes, hospitals, schools, underground etc because, if you don't, they will attack you viciously tomorrow. They have to be stopped or war will be unending. Why can't we all just get along?
I worry about that a lot too since both my Democratic Senators fall into that category of trying to work with corrupt and cowardly Republicans and brag about those efforts versus doing anything about attacking the evil and even Trump in order to save democracy. I also worry that the Democrats have a real Fetterman problem so they will need to win the Senate by more than one member too. I put this problem another way: They campaigned in 2024 trying to assuage voters they cared about the price of eggs and meat being too high but weren't able or willing to explain why that it had nothing to do with the Biden Administration. They were unable to defend an otherwise stellar economic recovery under Biden. They ran from their parties own accomplishments on the economy in preventing a prolonged recession. The US economy under Biden during Covid outpaced the recovery in all the advanced countries. And even inflation came down a lot too and wages increased more than inflation did. In other words these wishy washy Democrats chose to try and get along with voters who really needed a better education and not just their sympathy.
that courage MUST come from the voters to demand it get done. No pussy footing. This must be the focus for the midterms. Nothing else
They can also pack the court. But they won't.
Ultimately packing the court just kicks the can down the road. We need a fundamental rewrite of the court. I have an idea, posted as a note, but there are a lot of other ideas as well.
I don't object to a fundamental rewrite of the Court (depending upon what it does, of course), but, for now, let's kick the can down the road. The next Democratic president should appoint four additional members to give us a 7-6 majority. I also hope that Thomas and Alito do a Ginsburg; that is, consider themselves irreplaceable and then die (or resign because of illness) when a Democratic president holds office.
I should add that appointing four additional justices would require legislation, and the term "packing the Court" developed such a bad reputation when Roosevelt tried it that I don't expect enough Democrats in Congress to have the courage to do it.
Alito is said to be considering retirement, but I don't know how credible the source of that claim is.
That'd be, like, so cool. Hope he leave after Trump leaves though. Who knows what we could get to replace Alito?
They won't be able to do much, unless they get enough Republicans willing to vote with them and override the inevitable vetoes.
you increase the # of seats on SCOTUS to atleast 13, set term limits and remove any means of accepting dark money…end Citizens United. THAT MUST BE THE FOCUS OF DEM VOTERS.Nothing else matters now.
News flash: the GOP won the Senate, the House, and the presidency.
I'll miss my home, but I'd likely move. There is already an exodus across the border.
I can only hope the lawyers don’t think it as terrible as you do, but you’re a smart guy and you don’t necessarily have to be a lawyer to see the wider implications of something like this.
the lawyers are saying this is very bad. Another death nail to democracy. You basically have a king now. Suggest listen to Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin on her broadcast today. It's very bad
https://www.patreon.com/posts/162400464?utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=android_share
That was my first take on reading Paul’s column while I was so laying in bed this morning. I have since read About 20 newsletters on Substack about the whole thing. So yes, I do know that it’s very bad and I don’t need to add another person’s take but thank you for the suggestion
You get to the Immunity deal and you wonder "Can it get any worse!" Today dawns,
and you find out.
It's darker now than classic "noir." The lines above are inspired by these lines from "Out of the Past " (1947): "' It was was hot in Taxco. You say to yourself, 'How hot can it get?' Then in Acapulco you find out'"'
In the early 2000’s I took a job at The College of William and Mary with an organization that was seeking to build bridges between science, public policy and law. They understood then that this is how it works best. SCOTUS just dumped on that concept leaving science and policy out of the equation. I do not understand.
This is very dangerous!!!
And yet, most of us, and all of the media, refer to that lot as 'conservative'. That term is now an empty signifier. The Republicans on the Court are not there on account of their judicial temperament and a record of thoughtful decisions. Indeed, if they were in the business of working as private arbitrators, they would starve, as no competent advocate would agree to have any of them as the neutral deciding a dispute. Rather, they all came through a Republican farm system, having demonstrated their loyalty for decades. Example: the number directly engaged in stealing the 2000 election as boots on the ground, so to speak, to prevent a Florida vote count that might favor Gore. Now they are tossing a century of precedent regarding the administrative agencies, quite radical in sweep and scope. We must understand that there has been a project, of long-game duration, to reverse the 20th Century reforms of American governance, targeting achievements of the Progressive era, the New Deal, the Great Society and the Civil Rights movement. They are not conservatives, not inspired by Burke or Kirk, but counter-revolutionaries, enemies of our democratic republic. They should be regarded as such, and we should not surrender to them, in advance, on any point where they might rule in future.
They have destroyed the dignity and credibility of the Court, following an American iteration of the"leader principle". Afford them no respect, out of habit or hopefulness.