The Biggest Loser

SamIAm2

JohnInCarolina said:

SamIAm2 said:

@lousubcap - Do you think July 11 sentencing by Judge Merchan may be at play with the extension by the Supreme Court

What’s your thinking there, given that Merchan’s is a state case?

@JohnInCarolina - I think the Supreme Court is trying to delay the immunity garbage to help DJT for as long as it can.  My personal feeling is the court will fail to decide the issue despite extending it‘s term. Immunity for a sitting President was protection from strings of frivolous civil suits that would interfere with the President’s ability to do the job. That distinction should have been codified after Nixon but there was no political will to take that on.

JohnInCarolina

Gulfcoastguy said:

State courts are subject to reversal by federal courts. SCOTUS tends not to act until lower federal courts have ruled though.

I don’t think this typically applies to criminal cases.  Matters of state law are a very different story.

There is one federal connection that was part of this case, however, that would likely form the basis of a Trump appeal at the federal level.  

JohnInCarolina

SamIAm2 said:

JohnInCarolina said:

SamIAm2 said:

@lousubcap - Do you think July 11 sentencing by Judge Merchan may be at play with the extension by the Supreme Court

What’s your thinking there, given that Merchan’s is a state case?

@JohnInCarolina - I think the Supreme Court is trying to delay the immunity garbage to help DJT for as long as it can.  My personal feeling is the court will fail to decide the issue despite extending it‘s term. Immunity for a sitting President was protection from strings of frivolous civil suits that would interfere with the President’s ability to do the job. That distinction should have been codified after Nixon but there was no political will to take that on.

I hear you, thanks for clarifying.

I'm not sure how true this is, but I recently heard someone say that there is basically no timeline tied to a dissent.  So if a single judge wants to hold up a decision in the form of writing some part of a dissent, they can do it for as long as they want.  

You'd like to think that at some point shame would kick in but with guys like Thomas maybe not.  

lousubcap

Toss Alito in with Thomas.  Sad state of affairs.  

JohnInCarolina

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/first-presidential-debate-joe-biden-donald-trump-withdraw-20240629.html

lousubcap

^^^^ no issues with the above article.  Problem is the R's had a chance to close the impeachment deal twice which would have precluded CHEETO from running for office again.  The ambition of the "once in power, stay in power" fuel has driven and continues to drive the gut instincts of politicians.  Thus we are where we are.  And where we are is on the downslope with the bottom not in sight.
Lowest common denominator shapes the agenda and that just feeds the spiral.  
Unless enough pols put country before self the likelihood of this behaviour (nod) changing for the better is not gonna happen.  Off mini-soap box.  

alltoowelltay

uncanny indeed...

lousubcap

And here you have the SCOTUS decision on CHEETO and immunity:

What you need to know 

• Today’s major ruling: The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took in the waning days of his presidency in a decision that will likely further delay a trial on the federal election subversion charges pending against him. Read the full opinion here.
• What this means: The ruling rejects a decision from a federal appeals court in February that found Trump enjoyed no immunity for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results. Today’s decision says presidents have immunity for official acts but not all acts are official, and lower courts must decide which acts qualify for each. Trump called the decision a “big win.”

JohnInCarolina

It’s MAGA’s world, we’re all just living in it.

fishlessman

what a difference a week makes.....the trump train takes off while the biden train crashes and burns.   i give it a couple more days before the left gets their spin game back

SamIAm2

I admit my thoughts that the Supreme Court would fail to make a decision on Immunity was somewhat incorrect. Let the hair splitting begin in the Federal Appeals Court.

JohnInCarolina

SamIAm2 said:

I admit my thoughts that the Supreme Court would fail to make a decision on Immunity was somewhat incorrect. Let the hair splitting begin in the Federal Appeals Court.

They gave Trump everything that he wanted, and then some.  

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks for the country.  

JohnInCarolina

JohnInCarolina

JohnInCarolina

SamIAm2

Make America Grovel Again

Botch

From Robert Reich, today:
 

Friends,

Apologies for sending you a second letter today but, like many of you, I’ve been going over Chief Justice John Roberts’s presidential immunity decision, trying to understand the distinction it sets out between “official” acts of a president, which are immune from prosecution, and “unofficial” acts, which are not immune. And I wanted to share with you a particularly troubling aspect. 

Having served in the Justice Department soon after Richard Nixon sought to use the Department to go after the people on his “enemies list,” I was struck by Roberts’s assertion that a “president may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with his Attorney General and other Justice Department officials …” and that “the Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, acts as the President’s ‘chief law enforcement officer’ who ‘provides vital assistance to [him]…”

Since Nixon, the Justice Department has been careful to keep the president and the White House strictly out of decisions over whom to prosecute. But Roberts’s language would immunize Trump from criminal prosecution, were he to become president again and seek to use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies — exactly what dictators do. 

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “The Republican appointed-majority in this opinion has … opened the door to a President exercising wide dictatorial powers without any ultimate legal accountability for his actions.”

In his opinion for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts accused Sotomayor and the two other Democratic-appointed justices who joined her in dissent, of “fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals…”

But is this really fearmongering? Trump has repeatedly called for the imprisonment of his political opponents, often singling out members of the Jan. 6 committee. 

Over the weekend, Trump circulated two posts on his social media website that presumably reflect his thinking. 

One singled out Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman, and called for her to be prosecuted by a type of military tribunal reserved for enemy combatants and war criminals, which would strip Cheney of her right to due process. “Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” the post said. “Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.”

The other post included photos of fifteen former and current elected officials that said, in all-capital letters, “they should be going to jail on Monday not Steve Bannon!” The list included President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence, and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including Ms. Cheney and the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, another Republican, and the Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren and Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee.

The posts were still up on Trump’s Truth Social profile yesterday afternoon.

Liz Cheney responded with her own social media post, saying “Donald — This is the type of thing that demonstrates yet again that you are not a stable adult — and are not fit for office.”

The Trump campaign responded to Cheney with a statement claiming that “Liz Cheney and the sham January 6th committee banned key witnesses, shielded important evidence, and destroyed documents” related to their investigation.

I don’t believe Sotomayor and her fellow dissenters from yesterday’s opinion were engaging in fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals. Do you?

lousubcap

A New York judge has delayed former President Trump’s sentencing until September as his lawyers look to challenge his conviction following the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but his legal team has asked for his conviction to be overturned. Justice Juan Merchan said yesterday he would issue a decision on the motions by September 6. Kayla Epstein reports for BBC News.

Justice Department officials plan to pursue the criminal cases against Trump past Election Day even if he wins, under the belief that the department’s policy against charging or prosecuting a sitting president would not apply until Inauguration Day in January, according to people familiar with the discussions. Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein report for the Washington Post.

fishlessman

Justice Department officials plan to pursue the criminal cases against Trump past Election Day even if he wins, under the belief that the department’s policy against charging or prosecuting a sitting president would not apply until Inauguration Day in January, according to people familiar with the discussions. Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein report for the Washington Post.

this is like pissing into the wind, its all good til you get wet

JohnInCarolina

SamIAm2 said:

I admit my thoughts that the Supreme Court would fail to make a decision on Immunity was somewhat incorrect. Let the hair splitting begin in the Federal Appeals Court.

I expect the conviction in the NY State case to actually be overturned.  As others have pointed out, despite the fact that the crimes in question took place while Trump was a candidate and not President, some of what was admitted as evidence during the trial came from things he did while President.  

So, as that is now inadmissible under the recent SCOTUS ruling, expect the whole thing to be tossed out.  

We had a good run as a country.  

Botch

This is probably the most powerful meme I've seen, ever.
 

 

JohnInCarolina

https://dailyboulder.com/trump-faces-renewed-scrutiny-over-allegations-of-raping-a-13-year-old-girl/

JohnInCarolina

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-documents-b2475210.html

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

JohnInCarolina

lousubcap

$hit just got real around 40 minutes ago.  

Botch

F*ck.  

ColtsFan

It’s a crazy time in this world. 

JohnInCarolina

This is terrible.