SCOTUS Rewrites the Constitution to Protect Trump

March 04, 2024 By: El Jefe Category: 2024 Election, Insurrection, Trump

As expected, the SCOTUS ruled that individual states cannot keep an insurrectionist off their own state ballot.  The opinion was unanimous.  But what isn’t talked about as much in the media is what the majority did next, which was writing in a new constitutional provision specifically designed to protect none other than the subject of the ruling, TFG.  Even though the opinion was unanimous, it was unanimous only in saying the states can’t ban insurrectionists from the ballot.  The four women justices disagreed when the Trump Wing of SCOTUS went far beyond the question before the Court, adding a new requirement that a candidate can only be blocked under the 14th Amendment by FEDERAL LEGISLATION, which, in the current environment, is impossible.  It doesn’t impose that same rule on other provisions of the 14th Amendment such as the two term limit, just the insurrectionist provision.  So the Trump Wing of SCOTUS actually wrote in a new Constitutional requirement to disqualify an insurrectionist.  This is called legislating from the bench. And again, done so in the service of TFG to help him take over the US government in January 2025.

The Trump Wing of the SCOTUS often hides behind federal legislation in its opinions to help their own political party.  One glaring example of this is when they declined to stop clearly unconstitutional state gerrymandering  that has permanently disenfranchise millions of voters like those of us in Texas where Dems have to win 58% of votes in districts statewide to have a chance of taking a majority of Congressional seats.  SCOTUS says it’s not its job to protect from that, so disenfranchised voters have no recourse for justice.

So the SCOTUS continues to run interference for TFG, helping him run out the clock to the election in November.  Oh, and by the by, Clarence Thomas once again didn’t recuse in a case where he is clearly conflicted.

Your welcome.

The Open Sewer that is Now the Supreme Court

March 01, 2024 By: El Jefe Category: Corruption, SCOTUS, Uncategorized

Let’s just say it right up front – the current majority of the Supreme Court doesn’t give a flying fuck about the Constitution, the Rule of Law or you.  Given opportunity after opportunity to be the last line defense of The People against a continuous onslaught on the rule of law and common decency the Court has failed miserably time after time.  John Roberts has presided over the biggest abortion (no pun intended) of jurisprudence in US history, and appears to have lost what little control he had over what can now only be termed the Trump-Thomas Court of Law by and for the Highest Bidder, bought and paid for by Leonard Leo and the billionaire class.

Over the last two decades the Court has unraveled decades (sometimes centuries) of well established constitutional precedent, ruling that money equals speech (for billionaires and corporations), money doesn’t corrupt, gun safety laws are inconvenient to criminals and gun manufacturers, the EPA is a waste of time, political gerrymandering that destroyed state and federal legislatures is OK, unions that protect workers’ rights are tiring for corporations, separation of church and state is a quaint concept, state funding of religious schools is fine, public health policy to protect the health of the nation is unconstitutional, law enforcement can’t be held accountable for abusing the rights of the accused or wrongly convicted, access to reasonable healthcare is not a right, and state funding of campaign to counter billionaires’ money is illegal.  Added to this long list of disasters are the most damaging rulings, which were the gutting of the Voting Rights act and the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which is the first time in United States History that a personal right was taken away.  As I write this, the Trump-Thomas Court is now actually considering reversing the long established principal that US agencies can implement US law (Chevron Rule) and if a bump stock, which turns a rifle into a machine gun actually turns a rifle into a machine gun.  During oral argument Alito remarkably mused that bump stocks should be allowed so people with arthritis can easily fire off 400 rounds a minute.  Finally, Alito and Thomas have already sent the signal that marriage equality and contraception are on the chopping block as abhorrent as that idea is.

On top of all that, the Court is now actively helping TFG avoid prosecution by slow walking his ridiculous claim that a US president has absolute immunity from any criminal prosecution, even for murder.  So get this – in December, US Attorney Jack Smith, so he can get the election interference trial before the People before the next election, begged the Court to hear TFG’s claim that he has absolute immunity .  Oh, NO, says the Court, being all law and order, let it go through the appeals process first.  OK, so Smith does that and the DC Circuit quickly handed down a unanimous ruling that Trump’s claim is nonsense with an opinionthat legal experts say was “masterful”.  Of course, TFG then appeals to the Court, and then, after sitting on it for 16 days, decides that oh, we want to hear the case anyway, even thought there are no legal issues left undecided, pushing their hearing off to late April.  In other words, the Trump-Thomas Court is actively running cover for TFG to get him through the election for the highest office in the land without going to trial for trying to overthrow the US government.  If TFG is elected, it’s then game over for all the federal cases including the one for election interference and the stolen classified documents case.  It’s not just likely, but damn certain that the Court will then step in again and stay the state court cases against him until they carry him feet first out of the White House (whenever that happens) since he’ll never voluntarily leave office if ever handed it again.

And there you have it.  The United States Supreme Court, which is supposed to be the last line of defense against corruption, criminals, bad law, insurrection, and the stripping of constitutional rights is doing just the opposite, throwing The People to TFG and his goons.  And they’re doing it while failing to police themselves against blatant corruption.  As Steven Colbert put it last night, for the election case hearing, Thomas will put his tip jar out for that one. And Sam will be whining about how unfair Americans are toward him.  I mean, he’s just doing his job taking away rights and pandering to religious zealots and gun nuts, right?

 

Crime and Punishment

March 01, 2024 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

In a global sense, the hardest part of human existence is finding the balance between yearning for more and accepting what we have. People who simply settle are considered lazy or unambitious. People who constantly yearn for more are considered selfish or too ambitious. Somewhere in the space between there is a place where we should reside.

Donald Trump is never going to jail. Yes, he has 91 charges. Yes, he has committed any number of unspeakable crimes and there is probably another 100 he hasn’t been charged with and we can’t prove. Ken Paxton is never going to jail. Yes, he has been charged with crimes in federal court, but that was nearly a decade ago. The wheels of justice just roll differently for some people. Or don’t.

The Supreme Court recently decided to hear oral arguments on the claim that Donald Trump had absolute immunity to do whatever the hell he wanted as president of the United States. That doesn’t mean they agree mind you. I can’t think of any legal or historical justification for it, but I am only a mere political science major. I’m sure more learned legal and constitutional scholars could weigh in, but the notion that a president can be above the law is ludicrous on its face.

The Trump phenomenon is both fascinating from an academic sense and infuriating from a real life sense. Trump has managed to tap into everyone’s hate, fear, and insecurities all the while being the embodiment of that hate, fear, and insecurity. We have a two-tiered justice system. Everyone knows it and everyone feels frustration by it. How else could we explain someone getting charged 91 times and not going to trial for any of it? Yet, he is allowed to prattle on about it in his speeches and somehow the MAGAs see him as their warrior against it and not the ultimate recipient of it. It’s both fascinating and infuriating at the same time.

If this is normal then we have some serious problems. The truth of the matter is that it hasn’t been normal up until this point. Even if we take the Supreme Court and all of the lower courts at their word, they are treating this like it was business as usual. Yes, under normal circumstances we would want to delay criminal proceedings when those proceedings are political in nature. The trouble is that Trump presents a clear and present danger to the welfare of the United States. He clearly ran for president to avoid legal responsibility. It’s transparent. It’s disgusting. It’s incredibly demoralizing to watch it actually work.

Someone smarter than me once said that the universe bends towards justice. I can’t debate that eternal wisdom, but I doubt it every single day. I have no doubt that Trump will someday pay the piper, but it will likely happen in the history books. His children will be left with the bill. I’m sure there is some culpability there, but you have to wonder if that’s justice at all. I suppose in some sense it is and I suppose it is the best we can possibly do. Somewhere between the world we have and the world we want is a world we can strive for. Maybe someday that second tier of people that evade justice can finally reap what they sow. At least we can hope.

Any Doubt About SCOTUS Being Totally Corrupt? Silly you.

February 28, 2024 By: El Jefe Category: 2024 Election, Insurrection, SCOTUS

The SCOTUS just announced that, after slow walking a decision for weeks, that they will take on TFG’s claim of absolute immunity even though the Court of Appeals decision denying that claim was unanimous and has been called “masterful” by many legal experts.  They also continued the stay on his election interference trial, almost guaranteeing that he won’t go to trial before the election.  Trump wins again with his handpicked court.

Fuck me.

 

Loose Lips sink ships

October 10, 2023 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

Far be it from me to point out the obvious, but there are times when our behaviors don’t have real world consequences. Maybe we leave the stove on. Maybe we forget to lock the door. Maybe someone let the dog out. It doesn’t mean the house always burns down, someone robs you blind, or the dog bites a neighbor. It just means those things are more likely.

Yet, we know these things do happen. We see too many instances on the news to completely write it off. In one breath we talk about how that person should have been more careful and then in another instance we remember that we have likely done the exact same thing.

We experienced this as a country this weekend. We heard a story about the ex-president sharing secret plans with a foreign national and some people immediately pointed out the hyperbole. It couldn’t possibly come back to bite us in the ass. That’s just something that liberals are spouting off about to scare us. There are never really real world consequences. Loose lips don’t really sink ships. That’s just a red herring.

Well, maybe not. The Israelis were under attack this weekend. I’m not going to say it. Don’t listen to me. Let’s listen to the Israelis. They know the ex-president shared their secrets with the Russians. We can connect the dots from there. Let’s dispense with something really quickly. The Russians are not our friends. They have never been our friends. They likely will never be our friends. Their interests almost never align with ours.

Again, I did not connect the dots here. The Israelis did. Trump told Russia. The Russians are closer allies with the Iranians than we certainly are. Everyone we oppose is usually somehow Russia’s friend. So, Trump’s secrets that he got from Israel somehow made it to Iran. The Iranians don’t like the Israelis, so it probably made to Hamas. Again, I repeat that I did not connect those dots. Our right-leaning allies in Israel connected those dots.

So, before we start linking a six billion dollar deal (none of which is U.S. money) to this attack let’s talk about direct consequences and not seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. We already know the intelligence community kept things from Trump. Why did they do this? Well, that episode with the Russians in the oval office is probably exhibit one. That exact exhibit one is at play here. Remember, that is not me just pissing in the wind. The Israelis believe this.

I keep repeating that on purpose. You can certainly question Biden’s policy decisions and everyone is free to do so, but there are not two rational actors in this presidential race. One is a bloviating jackass that can’t be trusted with any actionable intelligence. You’d almost expect the intelligence organizations to give him far fetched and dubious intelligence to just to see if he can embroil Russia in a misinformation campaign. Unfortunately, Putin is smarter than someone you could dupe with an Ethiopian prince scheme.

Let’s get this off to a very basic start. Maybe the guy that kept our government secrets by a toilet shouldn’t be president again. Maybe that guy should be in jail before he can share any more of our government secrets. I know many of us wanted to believe that those loose lips wouldn’t actually cause any real damage. It was a fool’s errand. Loose lips do sink ships. They just don’t sink all of them and they don’t sink them immediately.

6’3″, 215 pounds

August 31, 2023 By: Nick Carraway Category: Uncategorized

I am normally against fat shaming people. Ultimately, in a real sense no one should care that much. Obviously, body issues play a lot in our own lives and goodness knows many of us have enough self-esteem issues to worry about. However, I enjoy playing amateur psychologist. What does this whopper mean?

Trump’s behavior reminds me of a golfer I played against in high school. No one keeps their own score in competitive golf. So, I kept his. On the first hole he dribbled it a few feet in front of the tee box, snap hooked the next one out of bounds, and then proceeded to dribble it up the fairway in an agonizingly slow pace. He was lying about six by the green. He chilly dipped his chip, then dribbled it on the green. He finished with a three putt which put him at 11 by my count.

When I asked him what he got he told me a five. That was a non-starter, so we kept bartering up. I think we settled on a nine. Something inside told me to just accept an approximation. He was in no danger of beating me and his team would be in dire trouble if they actually used his score. This was my day. He would throw out a number as if it were a negotiation. We’d haggle for a few minutes until we settled on a score that loosely resembled what he had actually done.

There are tales from the golf course involving Trump that sound equally infuriating. On one occasion he browbeat someone and bulldozed a fellow player into accepting that their ball on the green was actually Trump’s and their ball had in fact gone in the water. The reverse was the real truth but I can imagine the emotional fatigue.

Most of us that play golf accept a certain amount of cheating. We are fond of saying that the USGA rules are really just a suggestion. We allow bumping to improve the lie. We allow one mulligan per round. We allow two shots off the first tee. Putts within a certain distance of the hole are considered good. Most people that play golf are familiar with this kind of setup.  Others of us omit strokes every now and then. As long as this practice is occasional and not routine our playing partners don’t seem to mind. Golf can be a great allegory for life.

This is the same as the height and weight. What we know is that neither of those numbers are anywhere close to accurate. Trump is somewhere between 6’0” and 6’1”. There have been enough people that have met him that we know the 6’3” isn’t accurate.  The estimation by most that have met him is that Trump is likely closer to 300 pounds. That would throw him into the obese category and would make his frequent insults of other people (say Chris Christie) to be hilariously hypocritical. Yet, this is the golf thing all over again. If I ambush you with a slew of whoppers in one sitting you will become mentally and psychologically exhausted before the round (or activity) is through.

No one is really fooled by any of it. No one really believes that all of these people came up with tears in their eyes to beg him for anything. Yet, he has millions defending each of these things. They rationalize it in their mind somehow. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to make a calculation of which lies we will contest and which ones we will just let go. After all, what is the difference between an 8 and 10 on the scorecard at the end of the round?