SCOTUS – Page 9 – Politics Plus

Open Thread June 23, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 232023

Yesterday, I learned about the House voting to censure Adam Schiff for telling the truth. It probably came in the previous night, butit would have been after 10 pm my time, in one of the Substack newsletters. Ten pm is when I check for spam and close my email, even if i’m up later than that. I am actually less angry at the Republicans in the House than I am at the morons who sent them there. Adam’s full speech (a tad over 6 minutes is at his own website and also on YouTube, and one of my Substack sources provided a partial (but substantial) transcript:
“To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood. You who are the authors of the big lie about the last election condemn the truth tellers and I stand proudly before you. Your words tell me that I have been affective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful.
“Speaker McCarthy would spend the nation’s time on petty political payback, thinking the censure or fine will force Trump’s opposition into submission. But I will not yield. Not one inch. The cost of the Speaker’s delinquency is high, but the cost to Congress of this frivolous and yet dangerous resolution may be even higher as it represents another serious abuse of power.
“I say this to Speaker McCarthy and others who wish to gratify Donald Trump with this act of subservience, try as you might to expel me from Congress or silence me with a $16 million fine, you will not succeed you might as well make it $160 million. The Speaker will never deter me from doing my duty no matter how many false justifications or slanders you level against me. You indict yourselves.
“Why were you silent, afraid, and unwilling to do your ethical, constitutional duty? Why did you cower? And why do you still? Will it be said of you that you lacked the courage to stand up to the most immoral, unlawful, and unethical president in history but consoled yourselves by attacking those who did?
“Today I wear this partisan vote as a badge of honor knowing that I have lived my oath, knowing that I have done my duty to hold a dangerous and out-of-control president accountable and knowing that I would do so again in a heartbeat if the circumstances should ever require it. I thank you, and I yield back.”

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Politico – The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans
Quote – Revs. Jan Barnes and Krista Taves have logged hundreds of hours standing outside abortion clinics across Missouri and Illinois, going back to the mid-1980s. But unlike other clergy members around the country, they never pleaded with patients to turn back. The sight of the two women in clerical collars holding up messages of love and support for people terminating a pregnancy “so infuriated the anti-abortion protesters that they would heap abuse on us and it drew the abuse away from the women,” recalled Taves, a minister at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood, Missouri, as she sat on a couch at Barnes’ stately church in this quiet suburb of St. Louis.
Click through for details. It seems to me fairly self-evident. MAGA “Christians” could use a mandatory “refresher” course in what religious freedom actually is.

Wonkette – Sam Alito Is Just Humble Fisherman Drinking $1,000 Bottles Of Wine Served By Billionaires
Quote – [Alito:] I stayed for three nights in a modest one-room unit at the King Salmon Lodge, which was a comfortable but rustic facility. As I recall, the meals were homestyle fare. I cannot recall whether the group at the lodge, about 20 people, was served wine, but if there was wine it was certainly not wine that costs $1,000. [Wonkette:] Okay, a) how would Alito know what the wine cost if he wasn’t, as reported by ProPublica, paying for his stay, and b) Sam Alito knows what a $1,000 bottle of wine tastes like, and it does not taste like whatever swill he does not recall drinking in Alaska.
Click through. I figured if anyone could manage to put a more colorful spin on this story, it would be Womkette. They did not let me down.

Food For Thought

Open Thread June 19, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:57 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 192023

Yesterday, I got to see Virgil, and passed on to him all greetings, all of which he returns. He did say that being with me was the best Fathers Day gift he could have received. We got in four games of Scrabble (using all letters, not scoring) although the fourth one by the end of it we were ignoring a bunch of rules. We finished it 3 minutes before visitation ended. The weather was about perfect both ways – warm (but the air conditioner was working) and just enough cloud cover to minimize glare.

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Today’s Edition Newsletter (Robert Hubbell) – A tactical retreat by the Supreme Court?
Quote – A string of surprising Supreme Court decisions has caused some people (i.e., me) to wonder if the Court’s conservative majority is engaged in a tactical retreat to prevent further damage to the Court’s legitimacy…. If that interpretation is correct—even in part—it should spur us to greater efforts to reform and enlarge the Court. Why? Because the reactionary majority may have changed course because it believed that the calls for reform are likely to succeed. If so, the worst thing we could do is to relent merely because the Court followed precedent in a handful of cases—something it should do in all cases.
Click trough for article. Emphasis is the author’s, but if he hadn’t, I would have.

The Daily Beast – Jack Smith Should Have Waited a Week to Indict Donald Trump
Quote – [O]n Thursday—one week after Trump was charged in Florida—the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision in Smith v. United States, a case that decided whether the wrong choice of venue in a criminal case would not only be reversible error but also irreparable error—meaning that the case could not be re-tried in the correct venue. In many ways, this decision is no surprise because, as the unanimous Supreme Court opinion stated, there is no reason to treat a mistake in venue any differently than any other violation of Constitutional rights—meaning it can be remedied. Per the Smith decision, a case that resulted in conviction but was brought in the wrong venue would have to be re-tried in the right place.
Click through for opinion. All that waiting would have accomplished (assuming the charges had then been filed in DC) the only result would have been delay. The document charges would still have had to be filed in South Florida eventually. But this decision does open up some possibiities. (Emphasis mine.)

Food For Thought

Video Thread 6/10/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:50 am Open Thread, Politics

Jun 102023

Glenn Kirschner – The evidence detailed in the 44-page Trump indictment makes clear: Trump. Is. Done.

The Lincoln Project – More Biden Jobs

Thom Hartmann – You Won’t Believe The Power Behind The Most Corrupt SCOTUS Justice…?

Ring of Fire – Republican Says Trump Is Absolutely Terrified Of Chris Christie

Rescue Lamb Is Obsessed With His Dad’s Guitar

Beau – Let’s talk about the government removing the stigma….

Video Thread 6/9/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:54 am Open Thread, Politics

Jun 092023

Glenn Kirschner – Trump federally indicted! Here’s what we can expect in the coming days

The Lincoln Project – Our Flag

MSNBC – Jack Smith’s coup probe hits MAGA convict Steve Bannon

Thom Hartmann – You Won’t Believe The Power Behind The Most Corrupt SCOTUS Justice…?

Cat goes WILD for Trader Joe’s ciabatta!

Beau – Let’s talk about Ukraine, Kuwait, and supplies….

Open Thread June 1, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 012023

Yesterday, I ended up having to go in to my doctor’s office after all to get his signature, and that of one of his staff to certify that she had seen my driver’s license and that I am really me. Unfortunately, she forgot to sign it. I tried one more email with just that page, but I didn’t get home and see it until after the office closed, so I won’t know until today whether I’ll need to go back.

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Letters from an American – May 29, 2023
Quote – Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.” On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”…. “The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.
Click through for more quotes, many highly prescient, and not a lot of take from Heather because the material speaks for itself.

Slate – The Urgent Warning That Got Cut From a Supreme Court Opinion 20 Years Ago
Quote – More than 20 years ago, then–Supreme Court Justice David Souter tried to warn that big money in politics risked turning United States officials into tools of an emerging “plutocracy.” We now know from recently released case files that Souter had to strike the language in his draft Supreme Court opinion in a 2000 campaign finance case, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, as the price to secure Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s vote. It’s too bad, because Souter’s warning is one that American political leaders, including justices on the Supreme Court itself, needed to hear. That warning was never made and thus never heeded. Today, American plutocracy—from Congress to inside the walls of the court itself—is alive and well.
Click through for sad story. And here we are.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 30, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 302023

Yesterday, I learned something I did not know about the Marine Corps – not all that surprising, since it happened after my time – way, way after my time. But it makes a lot of sense. I just hope some of those mementoes are representative of other faiths. The manger Christans need to respect and in a way emulate is emphatically not the one that Aesop’s dog was in. And, yes, I did watch the National Memorial Day Concert (a day late) – it’s still available to stream if anyone else missed it the first time.

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John Pavlovitz – Dangerous Christian Drag Show
Quote – They shamelessly don their cheap, glittery regalia, meticulously transforming themselves into a sickening inversion of who they actually are, putting on an unnatural false persona designed to indoctrinate young minds by passing as something they’re not. It is a vile bait and switch that decent human beings should be sickened by.
The political Right is the worst kind of drag show: that of hateful, heartless bigots pretending to be Christian.
Click through for essay. What can I say? He nails it.

Crooks & Liars – Dem Senator Schools Chuck Todd On Why Congress Can Regulate Supreme Court
Quote – “The Chief Justice has to make this decision, though, right?” Todd asked. “Separation of powers, whether, I mean, it’s pretty established, Congress can’t make a law that does that, right?” Whitehouse informed the host he was mistaken about how the Constitution works. “No, it absolutely can,” Whitehouse laughed. “Well, it doesn’t mean it’s constitutional,” Todd quipped. “Yes, it does,” the senator explained. “It means it’s constitutional because the laws that we’re talking about right now are actually laws passed by Congress. The ethics reporting law that is at the heart of the Clarence Thomas ethics reporting scandal is a law passed by Congress.”
Click through for story. Chuck Todd is far from alone in (apparently} believing the “SC” in “SCOTUS” stands for “Sacrd Cow.” It doesn’t. Whitehouse is a gem.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 5/29/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:05 pm Open Thread, Politics

May 292023

Glenn Kirschner – Oath Keeper Elmer Rhodes gets 18 years in prison; Trump & DeSantis pledge to pardon insurrectionists

Thom Hartmann – These Corporations Force Workers ONTO Welfare…Then Lobby To CUT the Safety Net…

Farron Balanced – Trump Allies Believe He’ll Be Indicted By DOJ Very Soon

Armageddon Update – Financial Armageddon

Tiny Rescue Dog Is So Nervous That He Lives In His Mom’s Pouch

Beau – Let’s talk about SCOTUS and checks and balances….

Video Thread 5/28/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:05 pm Open Thread, Politics

May 282023

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s Mar-a-Lago “dress rehearsal” to hide docs from DOJ shows premeditation to obstruct justice (Glrnn dordn’t mention the copies today, but I expect to be hearing about that from him very soon.)