Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

it's not even a 'two wrongs make a right' scenario because one individual has violated the law many, many times, and the other side is actually interpreting the appropriate 14th amendment passage consistent with how it's been historically used, it's just never been used for this high an office.

Is there a Godwin's law for evoking John Wayne Gacy in an argument

Self-clowning oven

slow clap

our god is a mighty god!!!!!!!!!!

don't know why that popped into mind but yeah, god is deffo way dead

god is dead as a doornail

God's away on business.

god is ooo, but if we're real dead as a doorknob

just completely dead at this point

seems more likely we were badly misinformed about what to expect from god

One must imagine a god of very low expectations beginning to roll a boulder up a mountain

new news
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/21/donald-trump-recorded-pressuring-wayne-canvassers-not-to-certify-2020-vote-michigan/72004514007/

guys stop Peggy Noonan settled it

https://i.imgur.com/jdlSI8B.png

I see what you're going for here, but actors are meat puppets; they do what they're told.

Yeah mostly just thinking about the brazen Confederate iconography of my childhood and how probably we should have taken it more at face value.

His case seems pretty airtight. Treason is mentioned in the Constitution you know.

It's the treason for the season

how is Peggy Noonan only 73?

Gerald Ford, dead today

There is a God, and he hates us

it's a very bad saved game, saved for badness

I’m calling BS on a narrative that’s become widespread: The idea that liberals hope the 14th amendment is the “magical cure-all” that finishes Trump once and for all.

This NYT piece leads with this claim. 1/https://t.co/YaytnXJNOK pic.twitter.com/06n4ebzgPH

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 21, 2023

isn't allowing the people to vote for the end of democracy actually THE REAL DEMOCRACY? be real sheeple.

Sneer about “the Resistance” all you want, but

what would it be like if we all got to call BS

Institutions are supposed to deliver what they were designed for. In the case of our laws and legal institutions their declared intent is to deliver impartial justice arrived at through democratic legislative institutions and impartial courts. Obviously the NYT thinks that calling on the institutions of governance to perform their various obligations is the same as "searching for magic bullets". I guess the NYT is pushing the idea that our government, our laws and our institutions can't or won't do their job and it is foolish of anyone to think they will. Great editorial position there, NYT!

FWIW... from Politico:

‘The Opposite of Politics’: A Conservative Legal Scholar Says Kicking Trump Off the Ballot Is ‘Unassailable’

J. Michael Luttig explains why he thinks the 14th Amendment should prevent Trump from running for president again.

You’ve said you’re confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the Colorado ruling. What’s the source of your confidence?

Luttig: I’m always exceedingly careful with my word choice in public on profound matters of great importance. What I have said is that I am confident that the Supreme Court would affirm Colorado Supreme Court’s decision based upon the objective law, which in this instance is Section 3 of the 14th amendment. Which is to say that I know that the Colorado Supreme Court decision is unassailable in every single respect under the Constitution of the United States.

exceedingly careful

the Colorado Supreme Court decision is unassailable in every single respect under the Constitution of the United States.

The First Rule of SCOTUS Club is that the US Constitution says what you say it says. What a Colorado court says it says is just their opinion.

i mean it's not unassailable according to 3/7 judges on the colorado supreme court

I don't think anyone should be barred from running/removed from ballots for any reason. I don't see that as an effective measure to stop anything/anyone bad - if a plurality or majority of an electorate wish to elect John Wayne Gacy, preventing them from voting for John Wayne Gacy isn't going to resolve the underlying issue - and runs parallel to my objection to stripping felons of the vote, etc..

I don't think felons should be barred from running for office but like if the crime was trying to overthrow the government that seems like one you ought to make an exception for. like if a doctor committed a felony by deliberately overprescribing his friends I'd say that dude probably shouldn't be able to work in the pharmacy either. but he could still become a Senator or be like Dr. Oz or something

That Detroit News story, which I came here to post, seems bad for Trump?

Yeah, that seems more straightforwardly illegal than his role in j6 shenanigans...

They'll get right on it. Pencil the first hearing for 2029.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/us/colorado-supreme-court-trump.html
http://media.aclj.org/pdf/Colorado-Republican-State-Central-Committee-v.-Anderson-Cert-Petition-PDFA_Redacted.pdf

the CO GOP is first to ask the supreme court to appeal the disqualification of trump from the ballot. in their petition they frame the case like this:

Whether the President falls within the list of officials subject to the disqualification provision of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment

Whether Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is self-executing to the extent of allowing states to remove candidates from the ballot in the bsence of any Congressional action authorizing such process

Whether the denial to a political party of its ability to choose the candidate of its choice in a presidential primary and general election violates that party’s First Amendment Right of Association

i think they’d have a better case just begging roberts for trump’s constitutional right to a mulligan rly but it will work somehow maybe

the first two are much stronger arguments than the third. the third is laughable

"not being able to nominate a 12 year old middle schooler violates our First Amendment Rights"
"not being able to nominate a dead clown violates our First Amendment Rights"
"not being able to nominate someone who was born and lived in France and moved here 2 months ago violates our First Amendment rights"

I’m actually mad I can’t vote for someone born and raised in France and only moved here 2 months ago

"But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

I find this pretty persuasive as to the intent as to self execution. i mean if ever an exception proved a rule ffs there it is

I find the argument that the President is actually not "an officer of the United States" to be even more ridiculous than the 1st Amendment one. they probably do have a point that Congress ought to be involved, though I would argue that half of Congress is explicitly pro-insurrection, so we shouldn't give a fuck what they think either. but we all know the ball always bounces Trump's way so whatever, nothing's gonna happen

I mean, Trump hasn't exactly avoided consequences in the years since he's left office. when he doesn't have the means of controlling the arms that are investigating him, he doesn't do so well.

in this particular case, it's not a nothingburger what happened either, but SCOTUS just doesn't have to do much to undo it, just refer it back to the lower court ruling.

it almost would help Republicans more to just let it ride, throw up their hands, oh, we would have nominated Trump, but corrupt justices made it impossible, so we're reluctantly nominating this other person, but don't worry, they will bring back Trump's agenda! and fundraise off of it.

I mean...they wouldn't win doing this either, but I feel like Trump's polling numbers are probably peaking right now and he's due for a major backslide next year and after he gets the nomination, especially after the latest economic data that just dropped.

polling largely stopped for the year a week and a half ago so we'll have to see what the next set shows.

the general pattern with Trump seems to be that his approval numbers are not awful during periods where he's mostly out of the news, once he wins the nomination there will probably be a lot more attention paid to him openly promising to be a dictator and saying shit like "may all liberals ROT in HELL!!". feel like once again we're gonna test if people's hatred of Trump is gonna win out vs. their indifference/dislike of Biden, idk seems like it'll probably work, especially because there is a pretty convincing argument to be made that America is essentially over if he wins again

This coming year will be unbearable

oh it's going to be completely garbage and i'm not looking forward to it since this year was pretty much the worst of my life. but hey maybe we pull off another miracle

And, lo, gigantic TRUMP flags will emerge upon many a Dodge Ram pickup and yacht flotilla and fill the land with tumult and the owning of libs by invincible stupidity.

2024 is gonna suck no doubt but I’ve also come to realize that a big part of what made 2016-2020 so unbearable was just being on Twitter all the time. So I’m almost thankful to Elon for killing it. The reality is federal government shit doesn’t matter a whole lot in my life, not as much as local issues like who wins school board, obviously this is because I’m in a privileged group and I’m very sorry to those who are not but I think it’s important that everyone finds a way to stay sane through all this. My advice is to cut as many of the freaks out of your life as you can. I was so miserable trying to reason with certain people in my family who really did believe everyone smarter than them in any subject was full of shit, once you recognize it as the no-win situation it actually is it’s a lot easier to navigate.

Of course I may be delusional but I’m not completely freaked out because I really don’t think Trump has what it takes to actually overthrow the entire government. He’s gonna hurt a lot of people out of incompetence but I really do think this country’s come too far to turn into a fascist hellhole overnight

And, lo, gigantic TRUMP flags will emerge upon many a Dodge Ram pickup and yacht flotilla and fill the land with tumult and the owning of libs by invincible stupidity.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless),

Where I live "will" has nothing to do with it.

the government has already been overthrown, nobody is actually running things anymore