The government needs to press the "hypothetical" that a president/king with unlimited immunity could order a Supreme Court justice he disagrees with be jailed (or their family jailed), tortured, and killed. Make these partisan hacks think about themselves since they care NOT AT ALL about the law, Constitution, or the country.
Yes, if there is absolute presidential immunity, then Joe Biden could order the execution of Trump. Could have any Supreme Court justice he doesn’t like shipped off to Guantánamo. Could invite Speaker Johnson and Mitch McConnell over to the Oval Office for tea and shoot them both.
Of course, Biden would never consider any of those things, even if he had absolute immunity. And the Republicans know that which is why they’re not worried about him having it (which he would if the Court decides such a ridiculous immunity actually exists).
Equally of course, Trump and many Republicans would be very much considering doing exactly those things and wouldn’t only if somebody actually managed to talk them out of it.
Since his election, I have striven (strived?) to hold on to a glimmer of hope that conservatives of good conscience and strong patriotism would stand up and speak truth and good sense, followed by honest voting. I look to writers like Jay, Simon Rosenberg, Joyce Vance and the other sisters in law, Dan Rather and a few others to help me maintain an even keel. The degree of philosophical turmoil in the body politic is stunning but not as much as the overt antagonism toward fellow citizens stemming from disinformation and misinformation. What I had thought unequivocal is the notion that no one is above the law. I don’t believe it’s true in practice. I thought the Nixon era had brought common understanding of the red lines around the actions of a president. I’ve held onto the belief that basic education in civics and law would further open the eyes of the conservatives who saw the dangers ahead of electing a narcissistic ego maniac and bring them to vote against him.
I’m ashamed of my naïveté. It saddens me that my expectations and hopes for restorative outcomes of the trials ongoing and pending is so weak. But I’m grateful to you, Jay, and to the members of this community who continue to bring out and collectively consider the truth of our current situation.
Maybe it's not naïveté so much as just a reasonable assumption that some people can be decent? The substack-based Bulwark is an example of conservatives trying hard to stop this awfulness. There's a substantial block of conservatives like this. But they are running up against well entrenched foes that have been working for 40 years to accomplish what is now in front of us.
And, sadly, the conservatives at a place like Bulwark helped build the infrastructure for what is happening now. A lot of them own it, but a lot don't.
Thanks Charles. I believe the assumption of decency is reasonable. In fact, the opposite assumption is what seems too often to be the order of the day. The fact that so many of the people around me (bright red state here) who I know to be decent people have a world view that allows them to rationalize their support of tfg and the radical bastardization of the Republican Party simply baffles me. That this was hidden under a veneer that concealed it so thoroughly also baffles me. I’ve found I can no longer worship with my neighbors, my socializing has dwindled to just a very few likeminded people. Our town is super tiny (under 100 w/in a 1 mile radius of the post office) and politics is a favorite topic of discussion. The very spirit of this community has changed. I don’t know how many here are now rethinking their positions. I hope there are many, and that they’re willing to be open about it.
I've read and heard about this kind of thing. I'm sorry you are experiencing this. It's a perplexing phenomenon that will be studied by sociologists decades from now, but of course this does you no good.
I’ve thought the same about TLP people since they started. I like Reed Galen and Tim Miller, and occasionally Rick Wilson, but at the end of the day, they are still republicans. And they are indeed part of the reason we are here. And, I cannot abide Steve Schmidt. I think he’s a sanctimonious asshole. George Conway? Nope. He’s married to ConJob (if they’re still actually together). Too little, much too late.
I had no idea. I stand corrected on George. Thank you for that. And I also conflated The Bulwark people with TLP, I think. People can and do change; I wasn’t negating that.
None of us could have known the effect that Facebook algorithms, which directed hordes of regular folk to batshit crazy right wing propaganda 'news' sites daily, would play in turning conservatives into whining, raging, soundbite researching idiots unable to think critically about anything but perhaps their next meal.
As Joyce says “we’re all in this together”. Good choice of Substacks to read. Helps both to educate and to maintain sanity.
Don’t beat yourself up. I don’t think any rational person thought it could get this flagrant. The GOP of old at least put on a facade of patriotism and made excuses for their cruelty and greed. They no longer even try to “hide their crazy” . . Sad.
If there were “conservatives of good conscience and strong patriotism” we would’ve seen them by now. Other than Cheney and Kinsinger, there aren’t any.
HyeUp, I believe a lot of us feel like you do. I know I am naive when it comes to people. Despite the many horrible people I’ve come across, I tend to believe that people are essentially good. I lack the paranoia, suspicion, and fear that many people have towards others. Innocently enough, it does get me into undesirable situations sometimes. As my friend likes to say, “People never cease to amaze me.”
I too, find myself feeling like my naïveté is failing me lately. My new found paranoia and fear of my fellow citizens has come as a surprise. This is not my typical personality. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me question myself. It makes me question others a lot more now. I believed that if I could understand these Republican’s and their supporter’s motives, it would make me feel better. It doesn’t. I feel worse actually.
I started to feel hopeless, because I see the false righteous superiority of religion in so many people now - my family and friends included. I recognize it, because I used to be the same. This scares me the most. When people believe they are upholding the will of God, they get a little crazy (just look at all the religious wars then and now). They do and say things they typically would not. They start to believe violence may be an acceptable course of action to get their voices heard. Their fear of failing their god, their fear of all those doomed souls, their fear of becoming the minority exalts the Republican Party as the party of their god. Trump is their savior, not their false idol. They excuse Trump’s crimes and failures as a human being because they are willing to win at all costs - even if it costs us our democracy. Will they be surprised when Trump fails to turn America into a theocracy, but a dictatorship? I hope we don’t have to find out.
Trump gets way too much credit for his Court picks. He was presented with a list of Federalist Society approved nominees and told to pick one. Every single one of the options Trump had to pick from was vetted for their willingness to overturn Roe. If he'd tried to pick a different nominee McConnell would never have allowed them to be confirmed.
Both Bushes are just as much to blame as Trump. Sure, Trump had three picks, but that was purely McConnell's doing. Overturning Roe was a team effort by the Republicans. McConnell deserves MVP. Trump deserves a participation trophy; he just supplied the nominees a Republican President was supposed to.
Bingo! This entire mess can be laid at the feet of Mitch McConnell. He actively sought to have Republicans vote no to impeach tRump saying that he hadn't gotten away with anything.....yet, referring to January 6th. He also said that we have a judicial system that would take care of tRump. BULLSHIT. tRump has run roughshod all over our judicial system and is getting away with it. I'm tired of the shenanigans. Just lock him up already.
"Amy Coney Barrett, who voted with the conservative supermajority to strike down Roe, is now witnessing many of the real-life consequences of that decision, and she appears distressed by them."
I have no patience for this. She seems reasonably intelligent. This was predicted by people with a lot fewer legal chops than she has.
And the immunity hearing has me wanting to bang my head against the wall. I would do that, but this country is making me feel so dumb that I can't afford to knock loose what little brain matter I have left.
I’m glad she’s horrified. She should be. This issue was black and white to the conservatives. They never considered all the ‘what if’ shades of grey, and it’s coming back to bite them. And harming women at an alarming rate.
I'm glad she's horrified, too, but she should have had enough wits about her to anticipate this. And now she's doing the same thing with immunity. Will she be horrified when the results of that decision come in?
She should not be surprised by the results of their actions. Every woman in this country knew, if she is horrified because she "didn't know" then her head was in the sand. And it pisses me off that she's horrified but the men are not. Everyone should be horrified by the position they have put women in.
"Few observers believe the Court will rule Trump’s way. After all, if Trump is right, then it opens our nation up to rule by a dictator, unrestrained by anything but the power of the Senate to remove him from office, which requires a nearly insurmountable two-thirds vote. Most are predicting a 7-2 or 8-1 decision against him. (And the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas has not recused himself, given his own wife’s involvement in January 6, should be much bigger headlines.)"
Well it looks like the Few observers were right, at least based on the reporting on the hearing today. It is truly terrifying, my head is spinning.
John Sauer, representing trump, was obviously so happy with the direction of the hearing he declined to offer a rebuttal.
I’m still predicting a ruling that says no absolute immunity. But there will a new rule that Judge Chutkan will have to apply to determine whether an official act is or is not immune. We may not like that rule though…
At this point Jay, I'm not sure the rule of law is ever going to work again. At least not with the SCOTUS in it's current make up. BUT I did channel my anger into donating to Biden/Harris again!
I don't think our rule of law will ever hold the orange shitgibbon accountable for ANYTHING. It's going to be up to WE THE PEOPLE to speak with our votes and hand tRump and MAGA a resounding defeat in November.
I think he had no rebuttal because he knew he wasn’t going to sway the Justices who’d - pretty obviously - already decided against him and the ones who were even entertaining his ideas were already well aware of his position. I listened to the entire thing and all of the women justices, at a minimum, were unimpressed.
Jammed write-up today, Jay, and let me mention the just-concluded arguments at the Supreme Court in re: tRump immunity and the DC indictment. A perhaps not-surprising lot of sympathy for tRump's position by the right-wingers on the Court, who apparently hold that the president-as-king notion has some purchase, at least as far as "official acts" go. And what constitute "official acts" may likely be punted back on remand to Judge Chutkan's trial, where she will be charged with those determinations, and whose determinations OF COURSE will be subject to further appeals.
SC Smith may be placed in the position of dropping a couple of counts that arguably- or tendentiously - embrace "official acts", in the necessity of getting the trial back to some semblance of schedule without any chance of delay-by-appeal. So, upshot is, *some* immunity for tRump, a partial loss to accountability and the democratic order, and perhaps a trial restart, depending how long the Justices want to spin out a final decision. Won't be soon, by any reckoning.
And as an aside, Justice Coney Barrett made a point about "state and local" prosecution of a former president as perhaps *more* deserving of an immunity claim as opposed to a federal indictment, and that notion may have been anticipated by prosecutors in AZ and MI excluding tRump from their respective fake electors indictments. Which suggests that tRump's GA indictment *may* be on shakier grounds than previously imagined...a lot of pieces still in play, so stay tuned.
BTW, some excellent live-blogging by Kate Riga at TPM, and her reporting is well worth reading here:
The righties also insisted that the gummint not talk about Trump – to the extent they trod over Justice's lawyer at the merest mention of one of the many things he's charged with. "LALALALALALALALALA" they said – "Only the alleged acts of some pres in the future matters! Not the present!"
Yes, funny about that, isn't it? Dreeben for the govt. kept trying to keep the focus on tRump's *particular* alleged crimes, but the usual suspects on the bench insisted on "whatabouting" *future* presidents and their potential liability in just performing their "official acts"...well, if "official acts" DON'T include outright criminal behaviour, what's the problem?
The 23 point perception gap is quite interesting; the difference in perception is that these men also think that they respect women (and are mistaken in both).
Should Biden win in the fall, I would hope that any pending prosecutions of DJT would continue and not be dropped in the interest of "National Reconciliation," ala Nixon's post Watergate pardon.
Gotta find an agent, first :-) I did submit the novel to a small publishing house run by a progressive couple who don't require a literary agent for submissions, but most do, so the search starts there more generally.
Being an agent is just knowing people and having the time to talk with someone else for someone else.
Anyone you know can do the job if they can make the connections. Paying one is only useful in the long run if you enjoy their style or are buying their access to the ears of publishers.
But if you can find the words, you can be your own agent as well.
Well, agents have the connections within the industry, and there are no upfront payments of any kind. They get a cut of royalties. It's pretty hard for me to find the time just to finish a novel, much less do my own marketing for it, so it's worth it to me.
“Although the court appears likely to reject Trump’s expansive claim of absolute immunity, it could remand the case for further proceedings, further delaying the chance of a trial taking place before the election” The court’s concern looks like they think the ruling could be over broad. What would prevent a future president from pressing charges against a former one? Wouldn’t the severity of the crime be a good indicator? Plotting the overthrow of the constitutionally elected government might be a good benchmark.
It would be nice if the rats started fleeing the sinking MAGA ship, but most are far too cowardly to do anything other than continue their sycophantic devotion to the bloviating orange snowflake. I can't understand how anyone can listen to his constant whining and think he's anything other than a sad, angry dufus. . . .
I'm glad to see Arizona indicting more of the GQP scum. I agree with the point that running up the legal fees will hopefully take resources away from the GQP's typical propaganda efforts leading up to the election.
The Roberts' Kangaroo court is proving themselves to be not only deeply corrupt and incompetent out-of-touch partisan hacks in case after case. Roberts in particular is showing himself to be an insensitive, evil, asshat in the Oregon Homeless case and the Idaho Abortion case.
And a weakened Trump, with his party in disarray, opens the door just a tad wider, perhaps enough to allow for greater courage from a few Republicans willing to buck the extremists, whether in the U.S. or the Arizona House.
I think that the calculus of Speaker Johnson on Ukraine aid is that maga is on the way out and he's no longer in fear of being primaried by someone more in trumps favor. (I almost wrote someone farther to his right but Attila the Hun isn't eligible. )
On the immunity case, I totally agree on immunity for "official acts". Elections are not official acts of the president which I thought was already established? And I would have to assume acts of trying to stay in power after losing said election is definitely not considered an "official" act. I can see how they may strip down some of the charges but come on, nothing he did was in the course or interest of actually running the country. It's scary to think that they could come down on the side of "absolute immunity" to protect him for what he did. And honestly I don't see the concern that if they don't side with trump that it would truly affect the official jobs of future presidents. You only have to worry about illegal acts if you are commiting illegal acts right?
If SCOTUS rules president has immunity, can Joe Biden order seal team six to eliminate a corrupt political rival?
The government needs to press the "hypothetical" that a president/king with unlimited immunity could order a Supreme Court justice he disagrees with be jailed (or their family jailed), tortured, and killed. Make these partisan hacks think about themselves since they care NOT AT ALL about the law, Constitution, or the country.
Yes, if there is absolute presidential immunity, then Joe Biden could order the execution of Trump. Could have any Supreme Court justice he doesn’t like shipped off to Guantánamo. Could invite Speaker Johnson and Mitch McConnell over to the Oval Office for tea and shoot them both.
Of course, Biden would never consider any of those things, even if he had absolute immunity. And the Republicans know that which is why they’re not worried about him having it (which he would if the Court decides such a ridiculous immunity actually exists).
Equally of course, Trump and many Republicans would be very much considering doing exactly those things and wouldn’t only if somebody actually managed to talk them out of it.
Yep. He can adjust the ideological make-up of the Court without having to add more justices.
We REALLY did have a King in office from 2016-20...who knew?
One lives in hope.
Since his election, I have striven (strived?) to hold on to a glimmer of hope that conservatives of good conscience and strong patriotism would stand up and speak truth and good sense, followed by honest voting. I look to writers like Jay, Simon Rosenberg, Joyce Vance and the other sisters in law, Dan Rather and a few others to help me maintain an even keel. The degree of philosophical turmoil in the body politic is stunning but not as much as the overt antagonism toward fellow citizens stemming from disinformation and misinformation. What I had thought unequivocal is the notion that no one is above the law. I don’t believe it’s true in practice. I thought the Nixon era had brought common understanding of the red lines around the actions of a president. I’ve held onto the belief that basic education in civics and law would further open the eyes of the conservatives who saw the dangers ahead of electing a narcissistic ego maniac and bring them to vote against him.
I’m ashamed of my naïveté. It saddens me that my expectations and hopes for restorative outcomes of the trials ongoing and pending is so weak. But I’m grateful to you, Jay, and to the members of this community who continue to bring out and collectively consider the truth of our current situation.
Maybe it's not naïveté so much as just a reasonable assumption that some people can be decent? The substack-based Bulwark is an example of conservatives trying hard to stop this awfulness. There's a substantial block of conservatives like this. But they are running up against well entrenched foes that have been working for 40 years to accomplish what is now in front of us.
And, sadly, the conservatives at a place like Bulwark helped build the infrastructure for what is happening now. A lot of them own it, but a lot don't.
Thanks Charles. I believe the assumption of decency is reasonable. In fact, the opposite assumption is what seems too often to be the order of the day. The fact that so many of the people around me (bright red state here) who I know to be decent people have a world view that allows them to rationalize their support of tfg and the radical bastardization of the Republican Party simply baffles me. That this was hidden under a veneer that concealed it so thoroughly also baffles me. I’ve found I can no longer worship with my neighbors, my socializing has dwindled to just a very few likeminded people. Our town is super tiny (under 100 w/in a 1 mile radius of the post office) and politics is a favorite topic of discussion. The very spirit of this community has changed. I don’t know how many here are now rethinking their positions. I hope there are many, and that they’re willing to be open about it.
I've read and heard about this kind of thing. I'm sorry you are experiencing this. It's a perplexing phenomenon that will be studied by sociologists decades from now, but of course this does you no good.
I’ve thought the same about TLP people since they started. I like Reed Galen and Tim Miller, and occasionally Rick Wilson, but at the end of the day, they are still republicans. And they are indeed part of the reason we are here. And, I cannot abide Steve Schmidt. I think he’s a sanctimonious asshole. George Conway? Nope. He’s married to ConJob (if they’re still actually together). Too little, much too late.
I normally don't celebrate divorce, but I'm pleased to report that Conway and ConJob are finally in the process of divorce.
He did donate 926k to Biden. That’s not chump change.
I had no idea. I stand corrected on George. Thank you for that. And I also conflated The Bulwark people with TLP, I think. People can and do change; I wasn’t negating that.
Basic education in civics and law should be taught but, to my knowledge, has mostly disappeared from K-12 education which has damaged our country.
And we must remember that there are school administrators, staff, and teachers who like Trump and vote MAGA.
None of us could have known the effect that Facebook algorithms, which directed hordes of regular folk to batshit crazy right wing propaganda 'news' sites daily, would play in turning conservatives into whining, raging, soundbite researching idiots unable to think critically about anything but perhaps their next meal.
Exactly. YouTube is much the same. Reinforcing whatever was just watched. Explains at least some of the “I did my research” BS during Covid.
As Joyce says “we’re all in this together”. Good choice of Substacks to read. Helps both to educate and to maintain sanity.
Don’t beat yourself up. I don’t think any rational person thought it could get this flagrant. The GOP of old at least put on a facade of patriotism and made excuses for their cruelty and greed. They no longer even try to “hide their crazy” . . Sad.
Check out Heather Cox Richardson. You should add her to your must-reads!
If there were “conservatives of good conscience and strong patriotism” we would’ve seen them by now. Other than Cheney and Kinsinger, there aren’t any.
HyeUp, I believe a lot of us feel like you do. I know I am naive when it comes to people. Despite the many horrible people I’ve come across, I tend to believe that people are essentially good. I lack the paranoia, suspicion, and fear that many people have towards others. Innocently enough, it does get me into undesirable situations sometimes. As my friend likes to say, “People never cease to amaze me.”
I too, find myself feeling like my naïveté is failing me lately. My new found paranoia and fear of my fellow citizens has come as a surprise. This is not my typical personality. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me question myself. It makes me question others a lot more now. I believed that if I could understand these Republican’s and their supporter’s motives, it would make me feel better. It doesn’t. I feel worse actually.
I started to feel hopeless, because I see the false righteous superiority of religion in so many people now - my family and friends included. I recognize it, because I used to be the same. This scares me the most. When people believe they are upholding the will of God, they get a little crazy (just look at all the religious wars then and now). They do and say things they typically would not. They start to believe violence may be an acceptable course of action to get their voices heard. Their fear of failing their god, their fear of all those doomed souls, their fear of becoming the minority exalts the Republican Party as the party of their god. Trump is their savior, not their false idol. They excuse Trump’s crimes and failures as a human being because they are willing to win at all costs - even if it costs us our democracy. Will they be surprised when Trump fails to turn America into a theocracy, but a dictatorship? I hope we don’t have to find out.
Trump gets way too much credit for his Court picks. He was presented with a list of Federalist Society approved nominees and told to pick one. Every single one of the options Trump had to pick from was vetted for their willingness to overturn Roe. If he'd tried to pick a different nominee McConnell would never have allowed them to be confirmed.
Both Bushes are just as much to blame as Trump. Sure, Trump had three picks, but that was purely McConnell's doing. Overturning Roe was a team effort by the Republicans. McConnell deserves MVP. Trump deserves a participation trophy; he just supplied the nominees a Republican President was supposed to.
The point today is to lay the blame on Trump bc of the election. So if he claims credit, let him have it I say.
Fair enough; I have no problem blaming Trump for political reasons. My concern is more that we don't let the other Republicans off the hook.
But her emails.
Bingo! This entire mess can be laid at the feet of Mitch McConnell. He actively sought to have Republicans vote no to impeach tRump saying that he hadn't gotten away with anything.....yet, referring to January 6th. He also said that we have a judicial system that would take care of tRump. BULLSHIT. tRump has run roughshod all over our judicial system and is getting away with it. I'm tired of the shenanigans. Just lock him up already.
Very true.
"Amy Coney Barrett, who voted with the conservative supermajority to strike down Roe, is now witnessing many of the real-life consequences of that decision, and she appears distressed by them."
I have no patience for this. She seems reasonably intelligent. This was predicted by people with a lot fewer legal chops than she has.
And the immunity hearing has me wanting to bang my head against the wall. I would do that, but this country is making me feel so dumb that I can't afford to knock loose what little brain matter I have left.
I’m glad she’s horrified. She should be. This issue was black and white to the conservatives. They never considered all the ‘what if’ shades of grey, and it’s coming back to bite them. And harming women at an alarming rate.
I'm glad she's horrified, too, but she should have had enough wits about her to anticipate this. And now she's doing the same thing with immunity. Will she be horrified when the results of that decision come in?
She is truly an unqualified partisan hack. Her lack of experience (both court experience and real-world life experience) are both disqualifying.
She's part of some wacko religious HandMaid'esque cult called People of Praise. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a45432602/people-of-praise-church-sexual-abuse-allegations/
Cult seems like an accurate description. Someone this sheltered and inexperienced should NEVER be allowed near the bench.
She should not be surprised by the results of their actions. Every woman in this country knew, if she is horrified because she "didn't know" then her head was in the sand. And it pisses me off that she's horrified but the men are not. Everyone should be horrified by the position they have put women in.
"Few observers believe the Court will rule Trump’s way. After all, if Trump is right, then it opens our nation up to rule by a dictator, unrestrained by anything but the power of the Senate to remove him from office, which requires a nearly insurmountable two-thirds vote. Most are predicting a 7-2 or 8-1 decision against him. (And the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas has not recused himself, given his own wife’s involvement in January 6, should be much bigger headlines.)"
Well it looks like the Few observers were right, at least based on the reporting on the hearing today. It is truly terrifying, my head is spinning.
John Sauer, representing trump, was obviously so happy with the direction of the hearing he declined to offer a rebuttal.
I’m still predicting a ruling that says no absolute immunity. But there will a new rule that Judge Chutkan will have to apply to determine whether an official act is or is not immune. We may not like that rule though…
At this point Jay, I'm not sure the rule of law is ever going to work again. At least not with the SCOTUS in it's current make up. BUT I did channel my anger into donating to Biden/Harris again!
I don't think our rule of law will ever hold the orange shitgibbon accountable for ANYTHING. It's going to be up to WE THE PEOPLE to speak with our votes and hand tRump and MAGA a resounding defeat in November.
I think he had no rebuttal because he knew he wasn’t going to sway the Justices who’d - pretty obviously - already decided against him and the ones who were even entertaining his ideas were already well aware of his position. I listened to the entire thing and all of the women justices, at a minimum, were unimpressed.
My stomach is churning. I am horrified.
yep...no rebuttal=he's heard what he wanted to.
Or..."Say something once, why say it again?"
Jammed write-up today, Jay, and let me mention the just-concluded arguments at the Supreme Court in re: tRump immunity and the DC indictment. A perhaps not-surprising lot of sympathy for tRump's position by the right-wingers on the Court, who apparently hold that the president-as-king notion has some purchase, at least as far as "official acts" go. And what constitute "official acts" may likely be punted back on remand to Judge Chutkan's trial, where she will be charged with those determinations, and whose determinations OF COURSE will be subject to further appeals.
SC Smith may be placed in the position of dropping a couple of counts that arguably- or tendentiously - embrace "official acts", in the necessity of getting the trial back to some semblance of schedule without any chance of delay-by-appeal. So, upshot is, *some* immunity for tRump, a partial loss to accountability and the democratic order, and perhaps a trial restart, depending how long the Justices want to spin out a final decision. Won't be soon, by any reckoning.
And as an aside, Justice Coney Barrett made a point about "state and local" prosecution of a former president as perhaps *more* deserving of an immunity claim as opposed to a federal indictment, and that notion may have been anticipated by prosecutors in AZ and MI excluding tRump from their respective fake electors indictments. Which suggests that tRump's GA indictment *may* be on shakier grounds than previously imagined...a lot of pieces still in play, so stay tuned.
BTW, some excellent live-blogging by Kate Riga at TPM, and her reporting is well worth reading here:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/trump-immunity-supreme-court
The righties also insisted that the gummint not talk about Trump – to the extent they trod over Justice's lawyer at the merest mention of one of the many things he's charged with. "LALALALALALALALALA" they said – "Only the alleged acts of some pres in the future matters! Not the present!"
Pathetic piles of pus is too good for them.
Yes, funny about that, isn't it? Dreeben for the govt. kept trying to keep the focus on tRump's *particular* alleged crimes, but the usual suspects on the bench insisted on "whatabouting" *future* presidents and their potential liability in just performing their "official acts"...well, if "official acts" DON'T include outright criminal behaviour, what's the problem?
If I read Ms. Riga's reporting, how depressed will I get?
Pu-lenty, Charles. As bad as yesterday's EMTALA hearing...far-right on the Court are rolling and trolling!
I think I want to be like Wile E Coyote until the end of Roevember:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQzPw3GVO8g
The 23 point perception gap is quite interesting; the difference in perception is that these men also think that they respect women (and are mistaken in both).
Should Biden win in the fall, I would hope that any pending prosecutions of DJT would continue and not be dropped in the interest of "National Reconciliation," ala Nixon's post Watergate pardon.
Listening to SCOTUS CONSERVATIVES in immunity hearing, what popped into my mind:
Oh what a tangled web we weave
Listening to spiders
Spew specious sophistry
Most men never give women the respect they deserve.
Know how I know this?
I hear of very few matriarchies.
In my alternative history novel Restive Souls, the U.S. is a matriarchy (kind of), but don't be surprised if no publisher will touch it.
Find one run by a woman. Might up the odds. Tara Dublin may have advice too.
Gotta find an agent, first :-) I did submit the novel to a small publishing house run by a progressive couple who don't require a literary agent for submissions, but most do, so the search starts there more generally.
Being an agent is just knowing people and having the time to talk with someone else for someone else.
Anyone you know can do the job if they can make the connections. Paying one is only useful in the long run if you enjoy their style or are buying their access to the ears of publishers.
But if you can find the words, you can be your own agent as well.
Well, agents have the connections within the industry, and there are no upfront payments of any kind. They get a cut of royalties. It's pretty hard for me to find the time just to finish a novel, much less do my own marketing for it, so it's worth it to me.
Fair enough. I only know bits and pieces of formal writing but I've heard others.
“Although the court appears likely to reject Trump’s expansive claim of absolute immunity, it could remand the case for further proceedings, further delaying the chance of a trial taking place before the election” The court’s concern looks like they think the ruling could be over broad. What would prevent a future president from pressing charges against a former one? Wouldn’t the severity of the crime be a good indicator? Plotting the overthrow of the constitutionally elected government might be a good benchmark.
Thanks Jay.
It would be nice if the rats started fleeing the sinking MAGA ship, but most are far too cowardly to do anything other than continue their sycophantic devotion to the bloviating orange snowflake. I can't understand how anyone can listen to his constant whining and think he's anything other than a sad, angry dufus. . . .
I'm glad to see Arizona indicting more of the GQP scum. I agree with the point that running up the legal fees will hopefully take resources away from the GQP's typical propaganda efforts leading up to the election.
The Roberts' Kangaroo court is proving themselves to be not only deeply corrupt and incompetent out-of-touch partisan hacks in case after case. Roberts in particular is showing himself to be an insensitive, evil, asshat in the Oregon Homeless case and the Idaho Abortion case.
I can’t help but believe that jack smith has all possible outcomes covered and is ready to go immediately.
Ready is one thing; empowered by the court is another.
And a weakened Trump, with his party in disarray, opens the door just a tad wider, perhaps enough to allow for greater courage from a few Republicans willing to buck the extremists, whether in the U.S. or the Arizona House.
I think that the calculus of Speaker Johnson on Ukraine aid is that maga is on the way out and he's no longer in fear of being primaried by someone more in trumps favor. (I almost wrote someone farther to his right but Attila the Hun isn't eligible. )
A massive rejection of the GOP? Lordy I hope you are right. Those elections in Az have been way closer than they ever should’ve been.
We will see if the outrageous abortion laws will bring out voters. It did here in Ohio so I am hopeful. Not optimistic but hopeful.
On the immunity case, I totally agree on immunity for "official acts". Elections are not official acts of the president which I thought was already established? And I would have to assume acts of trying to stay in power after losing said election is definitely not considered an "official" act. I can see how they may strip down some of the charges but come on, nothing he did was in the course or interest of actually running the country. It's scary to think that they could come down on the side of "absolute immunity" to protect him for what he did. And honestly I don't see the concern that if they don't side with trump that it would truly affect the official jobs of future presidents. You only have to worry about illegal acts if you are commiting illegal acts right?