#Donald Kagan

[gregor-samsung]

" Qualcuno uscí da una tavola calda e cercò di porgergli una bottiglia d’acqua. Era una donna che indossava una mascherina antipolvere e un cappellino con la visiera, e ritrasse la bottiglia e svitò il tappo e quindi gliela tese di nuovo. Lui posò la valigetta per prenderla, a malapena conscio che non stava usando il braccio sinistro, che aveva dovuto posare la valigetta prima di poter prendere la bottiglia. Tre furgoni della polizia svoltarono e si precipitarono verso downtown, a sirene spiegate. Chiuse gli occhi e bevve, e sentí l’acqua scorrergli nel corpo trascinando giú con sé polvere e fuliggine. La donna lo stava fissando. Gli disse qualcosa che lui non sentí, quindi le restituí la bottiglia e raccolse la valigetta. Il lungo sorso d’acqua gli lasciò un retrogusto di sangue. Riprese a camminare. Un carrello del supermercato giaceva immobile e vuoto. Dietro c’era una donna, girata verso di lui, con del nastro della polizia avvolto intorno alla testa e al viso, di quel nastro giallo con la scritta caution che delimita la scena di un delitto. I suoi occhi erano piccole increspature bianche nella mascherina sgargiante, e lei stringeva la maniglia del carrello e se ne stava lí, a guardare dentro il fumo.

Fece in tempo a udire il suono del secondo crollo. Attraversò Canal Street e cominciò a vedere le cose, per qualche motivo, in modo diverso. Non parevano pregnanti come al solito, le strade lastricate, i fabbricati in ghisa. C’era una qualche mancanza cruciale nelle cose intorno a lui. Erano incompiute, per cosí dire. Erano inosservate, per cosí dire. Forse era quello l’aspetto che avevano le cose quando non c’era nessuno che le vedesse. Udí il suono del secondo crollo, o lo avvertí nel tremore dell'aria, la torre nord che cadeva, uno sconcerto sommesso di voci in lontananza. La torre nord che crollava era lui. Il cielo era piú leggero, lí, e riusciva a respirare piú facilmente. C’erano altri dietro di lui, migliaia, che andavano riempiendo la media distanza, una massa prossima a formarsi, gente che fuoriusciva dal fumo. Proseguí finché non dovette fermarsi. Lo investí rapida, la consapevolezza di non poter andare oltre. Provò a dirsi che era vivo, ma era un’idea troppo oscura per riuscire a prendere corpo. Non c’erano taxi e il traffico in genere scarseggiava e allora apparve un vecchio furgoncino, una ditta elettrica di Long Island City, e gli si accostò e il conducente si sporse verso il finestrino dal lato del passeggero a esaminare ciò che stava vedendo, un uomo incrostato di cenere, di materia polverizzata, e gli chiese dove voleva andare. Fu solo una volta salito a bordo e chiusa la portiera che capí dov’era diretto fin dall'inizio. "

Don Delillo, L'uomo che cade, traduzione di Matteo Colombo, Einaudi, 2008. [Libro elettronico]

[Edizione originale: Falling Man, Charles Scribner's Sonspublisher, New York City, 2007]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

I met Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s new choice for vice president, in the summer of 2022. I was covering a conservative conference in Israel, and Vance was the surprise VIP attraction. We chatted for a bit about the connections between right-wing movements across the world, and what American conservatives could learn from foreign peers. He was friendly, thoughtful, and smart — much smarter than the average politician I’ve interviewed. Yet his worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the basic principles of American democracy.

Vance has said that, had he been vice president in 2020, he would have carried out Trump’s scheme for the vice president to overturn the election results. He has fundraised for January 6 rioters. He once called on the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into a Washington Post columnist who penned a critical piece about Trump. After last week’s assassination attempt on Trump, he attempted to whitewash his radicalism by blaming the shooting on Democrats’ rhetoric about democracy without an iota of evidence. This worldview translates into a very aggressive agenda for a second Trump presidency. In a podcast interview, Vance said that Trump should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” in the US government and “replace them with our people.” If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should simply ignore the law. “You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it,” he declares.

The President Jackson quote is likely apocryphal, but the history is real. Vance is referring to an 1832 case, Worcester v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the US government needed to respect Native legal rights to land ownership. Jackson ignored the ruling, and continued a policy of allowing whites to take what belonged to Natives. The end result was the ethnic cleansing of about 60,000 Natives — an event we now call the Trail of Tears. For most Americans, this history is a deep source of shame: an authoritarian president trampling on the rule of law to commit atrocities. For Vance, it is a well of inspiration. J.D. Vance is a man who believes that the current government is so corrupt that radical, even authoritarian steps, are justified in response. He sees himself as the avatar of America’s virtuous people, whose political enemies are interlopers scarcely worthy of respect. He is a man of the law who believes the president is above it.

[...] The Vance of Hillbilly Elegy was very different politically. Back then, he took a conventional conservative line on poverty, describing the working class as beset by a cultural pathology encouraged by federal handouts and the welfare state. 2016 Vance was also an ardent Trump foe. He wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Mr. Trump Is Unfit For Our Nation’s Highest Office,” and wrote a text to his law school roommate warning that Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” Eight years later, Vance has metamorphosed into something else entirely. Today, he pitches himself as an economic populist and cosponsors legislation with Sen. Elizabeth Warren curtailing pay for failed bankers. In an even more extreme shift, he has morphed into one of Trump’s leading champions in the Senate — backing the former president to the hilt and even, at times, outpacing him in anti-democratic fervor.

[...] And it is clear that Vance is deeply ensconced in the GOP’s growing “national conservative” faction, which pairs an inconsistent economic populism with an authoritarian commitment to crushing liberals in the culture war. Vance has cited Curtis Yarvin, a Silicon Valley monarchist blogger, as the source of his ideas about firing bureaucrats and defying the Supreme Court. His Senate campaign was funded by Vance’s former employer, Peter Thiel, a billionaire who once wrote that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” He’s a big fan of Patrick Deneen, a Notre Dame professor who recently wrote a book calling for “regime change” in America. Vance spoke at an event for Deneen’s book in Washington, describing himself as a member of the “postliberal right” who sees his job in Congress as taking an “explicitly anti-regime” stance.

Vance is also an open admirer of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a right-wing politician who has systematically torn his country’s democracy apart. Vance praised Orbán’s approach to higher education in particular, saying he “made some smart decisions there that we could learn from in the United States.” The policies in question involve using national dollars to impose state controls over universities, turning them into vehicles for disseminating the government line.

Donald Trump's pick of J.D. Vance to be his ticketmate is about doubling down on MAGA authoritarianism and the "postliberal" worldview.

See Also:

The Dean's Report: JD Vance is worse and more dangerous than you know

The Guardian: JD Vance once worried Trump was ‘America’s Hitler’. Now his own authoritarian leanings come into view

[tomorrowusa]

Joy Reid, a liberal constitutionalist, finds agreement with Robert Kagan, a conservative constitutionalist, on the danger of another Trump term.

Casting an idiotic "protest vote" for an impotent third party could put the country in the hands of Mein Trumpf.

[prcg]

Los demócratas están lanzando una toma del poder judicial

Durante el primer mandato del expresidente Donald Trump, muchos grupos de interés de izquierda acudieron a tribunales repletos de jueces federales de izquierda en, entre otros lugares, California, Hawaii y el estado de Washington. Debido a la política de “resbalón azul” del Senado –una regla no escrita que permite a los senadores de los estados de origen vetar a los candidatos judiciales a los…

[wilwheaton]

The violent attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, and all the ancillary attempts to steal the 2020 election, were a coup attempt led from the executive branch of the federal government with support from Republicans in the legislative branch. 1 July 2024 – this Thursday – was a more successful coup attempt orchestrated by six judges of the judicial branch. “With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in an opinion joined by justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, after the US supreme court’s conservative majority ruled that Donald Trump holds “absolute immunity” for “official acts” done while president. Part of what’s shocking about the state of the union right now is that an entire party and the US supreme court’s conservative majority have abandoned almost everything – the truth, the rule of law, their own legitimacy, their place in history and the fate of the nation – to serve one man. They could not have picked a more outrageous man to throw their weight and reputations behind – a psychotic clown who’s also an indicted felon found liable in civil court for sexual assault, barred from doing business in New York, a stealer of state secrets, a would-be thief of an election and the instigator of a violent attack on the legislative branch of government and the constitutionally mandated transition of power after an election. A grifter who in 2016 won a minority victory in a corrupted election – his conviction earlier this year was on charges for one small part of that corruption. A man who has gloated about seizing dictatorial powers and never letting go and a worshiper of tyrants denounced by dozens of his former cabinet members and senior staffers. January 6 was an attack on the constitution and so was 1 July. That no one is above the law has been a pillar of this nation and a cherished value since the 18th century; to knock it down in the 21st destabilizes structures and values that have stood these two centuries and more. A president with total immunity poses obvious threats to the rule of law, the balance of powers and democracy itself, and if that president is the vindictive criminal on the Republican ticket the dangers are immediate and obvious.

The US supreme court just completed Trump’s January 6 coup attempt

[contemplatingoutlander]

So, as a major Trump supporter, J.D. Vance is literally PROOVING Kagan correct--Trump and his supporters want to trash the Constitution and set up a dictatorship. One of the first signs of authoritarianism is taking away freedom of the press/freedom of speech. Vance wants to weaponize the FBI against a journalist who simply told the truth about Trump.

So much for the First Amendment.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) is demanding the Justice Department open a criminal investigation into Robert Kagan, the Washington Post columnist who wrote an op-ed warning of a potential Donald Trump dictatorship.

[contemplatingoutlander]

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" --Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network (1976)

The above quote from Network sums up what I'm feeling right now. With their decision on presidential immunity, the far-right SC justices shredded the Constitution, and paved the way for Trump to become a dictator if he is put back in office. The above article goes into detail about the liberal justices' dissent. This is a gift🎁link if you want to read the full article. Below are some excerpts:

The Supreme Court’s three Democratic appointees railed in dissent against the conservative majority’s ruling that former President Donald J. Trump has some immunity for his official actions, declaring that their colleagues had made the president into “a king above the law.” Writing that the majority was “deeply wrong,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor added that beyond its consequences for the bid to prosecute Mr. Trump for his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, it would have “stark” long-term consequences for the future of American democracy. “The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, in an opinion joined by the other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Insulating the president of the United States — the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world, she noted — from criminal prosecution when he uses his official powers will allow him to freely use his official power to violate the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, or other “evil ends.” “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.” [...] Sometimes justices conclude their dissents with a softening and polite qualifier, writing “Respectfully, I dissent.” Justice Sotomayor instead concluded this one harshly: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” [color emphasis added]

________________ Video source for gif

[patriottruth]

This is a reminder that on March 4th, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered donald j. trump to have 87 Democrats in both houses of Congress remove his insurrectionist disqualification from ever holding any federal office again. He failed to do so prior to November 5, 2024.

Here's a compilation of evidence I'm being asked for that I pulled together from Wikipedia:

On March 4, 2024, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson reversed the Colorado Supreme Court decision, holding that Congress determines eligibility under Section 3 for federal officeholders and states may only bar candidates from state office.

While all nine justices agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment grants this power to the federal government, and not to the individual states, two separate opinions were issued. Justice Amy Coney Barrett concurred in the Court's decision that states cannot enforce Section 3 against federal officials, but wrote that the court should not have addressed "the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced." Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in an opinion co-signed by all three Justices, concurred in the judgment, but said that the court went beyond what was needed for the case and should not have declared that Congress has the exclusive power to decide Section 3 eligibility questions, stating that the Court's opinion had decided "novel constitutional questions to insulate this court and petitioner [Trump] from future controversy."

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision, that failed and deposed insurrectionist 2020 election loser and former president donald j. trump had absolute immunity for acts he committed as president within his core constitutional purview, at least presumptive immunity for official acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility, and no immunity for unofficial acts.

Berger v. United States, 255 U.S. 22 (1921), is a United States Supreme Court decision overruling a trial court decision by U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis against Rep. Victor L. Berger, a Congressman for Wisconsin's 5th district and the founder of the Social Democratic Party of America, and several other German-American defendants who were convicted of violating the Espionage Act by publicizing anti-interventionist views during World War I.

The case was argued on December 9, 1920, and decided on January 31, 1921, with an opinion by Justice Joseph McKenna and dissents by Justices William R. Day, James Clark McReynolds, and Mahlon Pitney. The Supreme Court held that Judge Landis was properly disqualified as trial judge based on an affidavit filed by the German defendants asserting that Judge Landis' public anti-German statements should disqualify him from presiding over the trial of the defendants.

The House of Representatives twice denied Berger his seat in the House due to his original conviction for espionage using Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding denying office to those who supported "insurrection or rebellion". The Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 1921 in Berger v. U.S., and Berger won three successive terms in the House in the 1920s.

Per the United States Supreme Court's "Berger test" that states that to disqualify ANY judge in the United States of America: 1) a party files an affidavit claiming personal bias or prejudice demonstrating an "objectionable inclination or disposition of the judge" and 2) claim of bias is based on facts antedating the trial.

All 6 criminal MAGA insurrectionist and trump-loyalist U.S. Supreme Court Justices who've repeatedly and illegally ruled in donald j. trump's favor are as disqualified from issuing any rulings pertaining to donald j. trump (a German immigrant) as the United States Supreme Court ruled U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was when he attempted to deny Victor L. Berger (a German immigrant) from holding office for violating the Espionage Act and supporting or engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States of America.

Again, as the text of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly reads, and ONLY reads:

Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 3 clearly and ONLY gives Congress the power to remove a disability of an insurrectionist to "be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State".

Section 3 clearly DOESN'T give Congress the power to impose or enforce a disability of an insurrectionist to "be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State". That's what Impeachment is for, and donald j. trump was impeached for insurrection and referred to the Department of Justice by a Congressional committee for prosecution for his and his supporters acts of insurrection against the United States of America on January 6, 2021.

Section 3 clearly DOESN'T give the United States Supreme Court the authority to illegally and criminally engage in insurrection against the United States of America by MODIFYING the U.S. Constitution AND LEGISLATING from the bench to relieve their own political party and the former insurrectionist U.S. President who appointed them from needing a two-thirds vote of each House to remove the disability of an insurrectionist to run for President of the United States and hold the office of the President of the United States should they be legally elected in a free and fair election. The insurrectionist MAGA cult that's taken over the former Republican Party of the United States knows that there was no way they were getting a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress to put impeached insurrectionist and convicted felon donald j. trump on the ballot, and so they had their six legally disqualified U.S. Supreme Court criminal MAGA insurrectionist injustices legislate from the bench AND ILLEGALLY and CRIMINALLY modify the U.S. Constitution to put Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and impeached insurrectionist donald j. trump on the 2024 U.S. presidential election ballot.

There are two steps in the amendment process of modifying the U.S. Constitution. Proposals to amend the Constitution must be properly adopted and ratified before they change the Constitution. First, there are two procedures for adopting the language of a proposed amendment, either by (a) Congress, by two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, or (b) national convention (which shall take place whenever two-thirds of the state legislatures collectively call for one). Second, there are two procedures for ratifying the proposed amendment, which requires three-fourths of the states' (presently 38 of 50) approval: (a) consent of the state legislatures, or (b) consent of state ratifying conventions. The ratification method is chosen by Congress for each amendment. (Wikipedia)

The necessary CONTEXT for the LEGAL UNMODIFIED ORIGINAL text of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is this: At the time of the drafting of the United States Constitution, the Americans known as "We The People" were fighting and dying to liberate themselves out from under a tyrannical king! Obviously, a President or Vice President who'd engage in insurrection against the United States of America DURING OR IMMEDIATELY AFTER the creation of the United States Constitution would be executed for TREASON; and because it'd be impossible for "a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any officeholder, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State" to BE IN A POSISTION TO IMMEDIATELY PROCLAIM THEMSELVES THE NEW TYRANNICAL DIVINE KING FOR LIFE OVER THE UNITED STATES AMERICA; and because all traitors were being actively and immediately executed for TREASON, it'd have been impossible for an insurrectionist traitor President or Vice President to run for any office again - because they'd be dead; therefore, it was unnecessary to include an executed treasonous President and/or Vice President in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. With full knowledge and understanding of these facts, the criminal insurrectionist MAGA extremist U.S. Supreme Court injustices ILLEGALLY and CRIMINALLY legislated from the bench to modify Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution so that, as far as the 6 MAGA extremist U.S. Supreme Court injustices are concerned, it now reads as such WITHOUT having been LEGALLY amended by a both two-thirds vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress AND the approval of 38 of 50 U.S. states:

Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. As of March 4, 2024, six partisan Justices on the United States Supreme Court bypassed the legal and proper constitutional amendment process, legislated from the bench, and added the following illegal and unenforceable legislation to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution without Congressional or States approval and ratification: "Only Congress determines eligibility of insurrectionist candidates under Section 3 for federal officeholders and states may only bar insurrectionist candidates from state office. Federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced upon insurrectionist candidates for federal office."

How many elected Republicans, Democrats, and Independents in the House of Representatives and the Senate provided the necessary two-thirds vote to amend the U.S. Constitution in this manner? What are the names of all of these so-called elected officials and where are the official voting records? What dates did these voting sessions occur?

Which of the 38 U.S. states ratified this Congressional two-thirds-vote-approved constitutional amendment so that the Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and insurrectionist donald j. trump could appear on the 2024 U.S. presidential ballot? This is where the presidential Take Care Clause is automatically activated and the U.S. president enforces the laws of the United States and upholds, protects, and defends the U.S. Constitution, and perpetuates American democracy.

This is where all six MAGA criminal insurrectionist SCOTUS injustices face both immediate and permanent disbarment from ever practicing law anywhere in the United States of America AND Congressional Impeachment and removal from the Supreme Court of the United States of America for giving aid, comfort, and support to criminal defendant donald j. trump's felonies involving moral turpitude, forgery, fraud, a history of dishonesty, consistent lack of attention to the American people, the United States, his oath of office, and the U.S. Constitution, drug abuse, thefts of taxpayer and U.S. government monies, thefts of at least 13,000 classified documents and other U.S. government property, and a pattern of violations of all professional codes of ethics.

Article Two of the United States Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, which carries out and enforces federal laws. Article Two vests the power of the executive branch in the office of the president of the United States, lays out the procedures for electing and removing the president, and establishes the president's powers and responsibilities.

Clause 5: Caring for the faithful execution of the law The president must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This clause in the Constitution imposes a duty on the president to enforce the laws of the United States and is called the Take Care Clause, also known as the Faithful Execution Clause or Faithfully Executed Clause. This clause is meant to ensure that a law is faithfully executed by the president even if he disagrees with the purpose of that law. The Take Care Clause demands that the president obey the law, the Supreme Court said in Humphrey's Executor v. United States, and repudiates any notion that he may dispense with the law's execution. In Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court explained how the president executes the law: "The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the president, it says, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," Art. II, §3, personally and through officers whom he appoints (save for such inferior officers as Congress may authorize to be appointed by the "Courts of Law" or by "the Heads of Departments" with other presidential appointees), Art. II, §2." In Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. 475 (1867), the Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary may not restrain the president in the execution of the laws. In that case the Supreme Court refused to entertain a request for an injunction preventing President Andrew Johnson from executing the Reconstruction Acts, which were claimed to be unconstitutional. The Court found that "[t]he Congress is the legislative department of the government; the president is the executive department. Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed, are, in proper cases, subject to its cognizance." Thus, the courts cannot bar the passage of a law by Congress, though it may later strike down such a law as unconstitutional. A similar construction applies to the executive branch. (Wikipedia)

The Take Care Clause is the constitutional checks and balances guardrail to counter judicial activism, legislating from the bench, and a rogue U.S. Supreme Court that's supporting and actively engaging in insurrection against the United States of America and We The People of the United States with the purpose of overthrowing the U.S. government, installing a dictator/King for life, ending American democracy, and engaging in tyranny against We The People of the United States of America. Due to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, President Joe Biden can simply overrule MAGA SCOTUS, remove donald j. trump from the 2024 U.S. presidential ballot, and issue an Executive Order barring all six of the criminal insurrectionist MAGA extremist SCOTUS injustices from taking or ruling on any 2024 U.S. presidential election matters and/or any matters pertaining to donald j. trump, per the Berger Test that legally disqualifies them from doing so. President Biden can then simply issue an Executive Order proclaiming that no sworn election official or law enforcement official anywhere in the U.S. or its territories can attempt to cause even one vote for the Espionage Act traitor, convicted felon, and insurrectionist donald j. trump to be counted for the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

What all of that means is that between now and December 17th, 2024, donald j. trump has no choice but to go to Congress and have 70 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 17 Democrats in the Senate vote to remove his insurrectionist disqualification, as he was ordered to do by SCOTUS on March 4th, 2024, or he's not legally the President Elect and cannot be inaugurated, sworn in, or hold federal office again on January 20, 2025. The clock is ticking!

Here's why this will work: donald trump's legal tactics are deny, attempt to wiggle out of it on technicalities, and delay, delay, delay. Well, from November 2023 to March 4, 2024, donald trump not only said that he was never an officer of the United States, but that he also never swore an oath to support the United States Constitution. And then he said that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says nothing about running for office, only holding office, and since he's only running for office, nothing can keep him off the ballot. And that's where this has finally caught up to him.

SCOTUS illegally took the case to begin with. SCOTUS was required to kick the case back to Congress immediately to force a two-thirds of both houses vote to remove donald trump's insurrectionist disqualification. But they illegally denied Congress the ability to vote on it at the time, illegally legislated from the bench to keep donald trump on the ballot by illegally amending Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, and dismissed the clear two-thirds vote requirement to replace it with "Congress must pass new legislation and amend Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in order to keep insurrectionists off of the ballot and out of office in the future. All six MAGA SCOTUS injustices can now be immediately and permanently disbarred from ever judging or practicing law anywhere in the United States now and in the future for that illegal legislating from the bench; because the U.S. Constitution clearly says that the Judiciary can never interfere with Congress legislating, or with the President enforcing the laws of the United States.

donald trump and his allies figured that was a win, that SCOTUS couldn't be challenged, that the Democrats could never get legislation passed to keep him off the ballot or from holding office again, and the matter was dropped. But that's where he was wrong; because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment still reads, and only legally reads, that the only way an insurrectionist can hold federal office again is by a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate; and that means that now that donald trump can't try and use the technicality of "I'm not even trying to hold office, I'm just running for office," and he's actively trying to hold office with no technicality wiggle room, donald trump's only path to the White House is to have 70 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 17 Democrats in the Senate vote to remove his insurrectionist disqualification by December 17th, 2017; and his favorite tactic of delay, delay, delay won't work because delaying means he can't be inaugurated, sworn in, and serve as the 47th President of the United States; and that means Kamala Harris would become 47th President of the United States by default.

If anyone is interested in fighting another trump presidency, contact every Democrat representative in the House of Representatives and the Senate and remind them that donald j. trump cannot be inaugurated, sworn in, and be the 47th President of the United States on January 20, 2025 unless 70 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 17 Democrats in the Senate vote to remove his insurrectionist disqualification before December 17, 2024. Many of them have online contact forms. You may have to enter an address near their local office in their district for the contact form to go through, but I know they're going to want to be reminded of this by as many people as possible in order to save humanity and American democracy from donald trump. Plus, Kamala Harris can be contacted via the White House Vice President contact form; and as a presidential candidate and the President of the Senate, she and President Biden can do a lot to enforce donald trump having to have his insurrectionist disqualification removed by a two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate before December 17, 2024.

This is why donald j. trump has no path to the White House without having 70 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 17 Democrats in the Senate vote to remove his insurrectionist disqualification; and why all 6 MAGA Insurrectionist SCOTUS injustices will be immediately and permanently disbarred for legislating from the bench, denying Congress the opportunity to legislate as the U.S. Constitution requires, and illegally and criminally amending Section 3 of the 14th Amendment so that elected Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate would be denied the opportunity to represent their constituents via the required two-thirds vote to remove donald j. trump's insurrectionist disqualification from ever holding federal office again.

MAGA SCOTUS' Illegal and Criminal Actions in the Anderson vs. trump Case. From www.supremecourt.gov:

The text of Section 3 reinforces these conclusions. Its final sentence empowers Congress to “remove” any Section 3 “disability” by a two-thirds vote of each house. The text imposes no limits on that power, and Congress may exercise it any time, as the respondents concede. In fact, historically, Congress sometimes exercised this amnesty power postelection to ensure that some of the people’s chosen candidates could take office.

…it is Congress that has long given effect to Section 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal officeholders. Shortly after ratification of the Amendment, Congress enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870. That Act authorized federal district attorneys to bring civil actions in federal court to remove anyone holding nonlegislative office—federal or state—in violation of Section 3, and made holding or attempting to hold office in violation of Section 3 a federal crime.

Section 5 limits congressional legislation enforcing Section 3, because Section 5 is strictly “remedial.” To comply with that limitation, Congress “must tailor its legislative scheme to remedying or preventing” the specific conduct the relevant provision prohibits. Section 3, unlike other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, proscribes conduct of individuals. It bars persons from holding office after taking a qualifying oath and then engaging in insurrection or rebellion—nothing more.

Any congressional legislation enforcing Section 3 must, like the Enforcement Act of 1870 and §2383, reflect “congruence and proportionality” between preventing or remedying that conduct “and the means adopted to that end.” Neither we nor the respondents are aware of any other legislation by Congress to enforce Section 3.

The disruption would be all the more acute—and could nullify the votes of millions and change the election result—if Section 3 enforcement were attempted after the Nation has voted. Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos—arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration.

Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson Opinion on the Majority Ruling:

Yet the majority goes further. Even though “[a]ll nine Members of the Court” agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case, five Justices go on. They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy. Ante, at 13. Although only an individual State’s action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3, and how they must do so. The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment.

Yet the Court continues on to resolve questions not before us. In a case involving no federal action whatsoever, the Court opines on how federal enforcement of Section 3 must proceed. Congress, the majority says, must enact legislation under Section 5 prescribing the procedures to “ ‘ “ascertain[ ] what particular individuals” ’ ” should be disqualified. Ante, at 5 (quoting Griffin’s Case, 11 F. Cas. 7, 26 (No. 5,815) (CC Va. 1869) (Chase, Circuit Justice)). These musings are as inadequately supported as they are gratuitous.

To start, nothing in Section 3’s text supports the majority’s view of how federal disqualification efforts must operate. Section 3 states simply that “[n]o person shall” hold certain positions and offices if they are oathbreaking insurrectionists. Amdt. 14. Nothing in that unequivocal bar suggests that implementing legislation enacted under Section 5 is “critical” (or, for that matter, what that word means in this context). Ante, at 5. In fact, the text cuts the opposite way. Section 3 provides that when an oathbreaking insurrectionist is disqualified, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” It is hard to understand why the Constitution would require a congressional supermajority to remove a disqualification if a simple majority could nullify Section 3’s operation by repealing or declining to pass implementing legislation. Even petitioner’s lawyer acknowledged the “tension” in Section 3 that the majority’s view creates. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 31.

Similarly, nothing else in the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment supports the majority’s view. Section 5 gives Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” Remedial legislation of any kind, however, is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments (including the due process and equal protection guarantees and prohibition of slavery) “are self-executing,” meaning that they do not depend on legislation. City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 524 (1997); see Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 20 (1883). Similarly, other constitutional rules of disqualification, like the two-term limit on the Presidency, do not require implementing legislation. See, e.g., Art. II, §1, cl. 5 (Presidential Qualifications); Amdt. 22 (Presidential Term Limits). Nor does the majority suggest otherwise. It simply creates a special rule for the insurrection disability in Section 3.

The majority is left with next to no support for its requirement that a Section 3 disqualification can occur only pursuant to legislation enacted for that purpose. It cites Griffin’s Case, but that is a nonprecedential, lower court opinion by a single Justice in his capacity as a circuit judge. See ante, at 5 (quoting 11 F. Cas., at 26). Once again, even petitioner’s lawyer distanced himself from fully embracing this case as probative of Section 3’s meaning. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35–36. The majority also cites Senator Trumbull’s statements that Section 3 “ ‘provide[d] no means for enforcing’ ” itself. Ante, at 5 (quoting Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 1st Sess., 626 (1869)). The majority, however, neglects to mention the Senator’s view that “[i]t is the [F]ourteenth [A]mendment that prevents a person from holding office,” with the proposed legislation simply “affor[ding] a more efficient and speedy remedy” for effecting the disqualification. Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 1st Sess., at 626–627.

Ultimately, under the guise of providing a more “complete explanation for the judgment,” ante, at 13, the majority resolves many unsettled questions about Section 3. It forecloses judicial enforcement of that provision, such as might occur when a party is prosecuted by an insurrectionist and raises a defense on that score. The majority further holds that any legislation to enforce this provision must prescribe certain procedures “ ‘tailor[ed]’ ” to Section 3, ante, at 10, ruling out enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law. By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office.

“What it does today, the Court should have left undone.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 158 (2000) (Breyer, J., dissenting). The Court today needed to resolve only a single question: whether an individual State may keep a Presidential candidate found to have engaged in insurrection off its ballot. The majority resolves much more than the case before us. Although federal enforcement of Section 3 is in no way at issue, the majority announces novel rules for how that enforcement must operate. It reaches out to decide Section 3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision. In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course.

Section 3 serves an important, though rarely needed, role in our democracy. The American people have the power to vote for and elect candidates for national office, and that is a great and glorious thing. The men who drafted and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, however, had witnessed an “insurrection [and] rebellion” to defend slavery. §3. They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in that insurrection, and in possible future insurrections, could not return to prominent roles. Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President. Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision. Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur only in the judgment.

[collapsedsquid]

Two things seemed clear after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the case concerning whether Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bars Donald Trump from the presidency as an insurrectionist. First, most of the justices want to rule in Trump’s favor. Second, they’re struggling to figure out how to do so. Maybe Section 3 doesn’t apply to the presidency per se, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson said—and perhaps, along those same lines, it doesn’t prohibit oath-breaking former presidents from holding future office either? Or perhaps, Justice Samuel Alito pondered, the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits insurrectionists from holding office, but not from running for it? Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed enamored of the idea that the amendment doesn’t allow states to disqualify candidates for federal office—as Colorado did here—without Congress first giving the go-ahead. In a related line of inquiry, which the justices seemed to coalesce around as arguments went on, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan suggested that perhaps there’s something inappropriate about allowing individual states to make decisions that could potentially determine a national election.

I do love the "something inappropriate about allowing individual states to make decisions that could potentially determine a national election." Perhaps there is something inappropriate about it but that is how the US election system works.

Gonna argue that our election system, like our immigration system, would be unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans for contradictory reasons if they understood how it worked so congressmen can campaign and judges rule based on totally imaginary ideas.

[mariacallous]

Legendary Watergate reporters Woodward and Bernstein slam Washington Post for shying away from endorsement

"We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post's own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy," the men wrote. "Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process."

...

They're the latest to voice their displeasure with the Post for refusing to pick between Harris and Trump.

"This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty," former Washington Post editor-in-chief Marty Baron wrote on social media. "[Donald Trump] will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner [Bezos] (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."

According to the Post reporters, Bezos, the owner of the paper and founder of Amazon, reportedly made the decision not to endorse, even though editorial board members at the paper had already drafted their decision.

Washington Post publisher and CEO Will Lewis wrote in a column on Friday that the lack of an endorsement was not an act of simpering fear by a billionaire and his lackeys, but was rather just the Post going back to it's original policy of not endorsing presidential candidates.

He reminded readers that the paper only began endorsing candidates in 1976.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility,” Lewis wrote. “That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

Bezos said he hired Lewis because of his "conservative bona fides" and that he liked that Lewis could play nice with "powerful conservative figures," NPR reported.

Robert Kagan, an editors-at-large at the Post and a constant critic of Trump, resigned on Friday after the paper refused to endorse. According to NPR, the general tenor of the newsroom following the announcement was negative.

A group of opinion writers at the Post explained in a column why they believe not endorsing was going to be a "terrible mistake."

“It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love, and for which we have worked a combined 218 years,” the column said. “This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020.”

[qqueenofhades]

BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, SCOTUS edition:

Clarence Thomas: appointed by George H.W. Bush (Republican)

Samuel Alito and John Roberts: appointed by George W. Bush (Republican)

Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett: appointed by Donald Trump (Republican)

Conservative total: 6

Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan: appointed by Barack Obama (Democrat)

Ketanji Brown Jackson: appointed by Joe Biden (Democrat) replacing Stephen Breyer, appointed by Bill Clinton (Democrat), who also appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg;

Liberal total: 3

Most common split on all these bad decisions: 6-3

Gee, it's almost like SCOTUS actually is incredibly important, Hillary Clinton and the entire mainstream Democratic electorate knew that in 2016, Democratic presidents consistently appoint the justices who are on the side of the rulings that you agree with, it was maybe a bad idea to let a man charged with 71 felony counts including criminal espionage appoint one-third of the current court, and yet BUH BUH BERNIE AND HER EMAILS.

[darkmaga-returns]

James W. Carden

Nov 7, 2024

Donald Trump’s astonishing political comeback might come down to the fact that, within the span of a decade, the Democratic Party has transformed itself into one that prioritizes lawfare at home and warfare abroad. 

In late 2015 and early 2016, as Trump began to gain traction as a national candidate, the Clinton campaign found itself the object of neoconservatives’ newfound affections.  

Back then, the neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan spoke for many others when he likened Trump’s takeover of the GOP to when “the plague descended on Thebes.” 

In the ensuing years, particularly during the DNC-funded, MSNBC-driven Russiagate panic (which some enterprising journalists are still peddling), neocons and mainstream Democrats became indistinguishable—to the detriment of the latter. The gross McCarthyism that had long been a feature of neocon polemics on Israel became the defining feature of Democratic foreign policy discourse. Perhaps the lowest point in a crowded field was Hillary Clinton’s public accusation that the decorated combat veteran and three-term congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was “groomed” as the “favorite” candidate of the Russians.

What Gabbard and other dissident Democrats knew then is something that all Democrats should understand now, that neocons lead to defeat—both at home and abroad

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The Watch:

Donald Trump has never had much tolerance for the free press. Throughout his first term he demanded we “open up the libel laws” to make it easier to sue journalists for unflattering coverage — which, more than anything else, reveals that he doesn’t really understand how any of this works. Even if he were able to persuade some red states to pass libel laws more hostile to the press, and even if he could get the Supreme Court to uphold such laws, few public figures would be hit harder by those laws than Donald Trump, who regularly defames his perceived enemies . During his first term Trump also threatened to withhold federal contracts and funding, and to revoke tax incentives from his critics. He repeatedly threatened such repercussions against Jeff Bezos and his various businesses because the Washington Post published investigations into Trump’s incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power. Those threats in and of themselves were likely unconstitutional, even if Trump had never followed up on them.

But the threats also had their intended effect. Bezos intervened to stop the paper from endorsing Trump’s opponent last month, and since the election the billionaire has been tripping over himself to heap praise on the incoming president. Trump has since only doubled down threatening the media. Over the course of his 2024 campaign he threatened to strip legacy broadcasters of their licenses (it’s not clear what that would mean, given that broadcast is all but obsolete), and his surrogates have pushed the absurd idea that unflattering coverage, “biased” debate questions and fact checking, and the edits 60 Minutes made in its interview with Kamala Harris amounted to “illegal in-kind campaign contributions” that could bring criminal liability. Trump now appears ready to make good on many of his campaign threats. Here’s a quick rundown of what to look for.

Civil actions against journalists

We can start with Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 contributor and Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission. Carr has already suggested that the FCC should investigate CBS over the 60 Minutes interview, as well as NBC’s invitation to Harris for a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Carr also wants to impose a partisan, contradictory regulation regime on social media platforms that would basically make it impossible for those platforms to exclude Nazis and white supremacists, harassment, and other objectionable content. It would basically turn every social media site into the cesspool that is X. Carr’s censorious blueprint is based on the theory that the owners of social media platforms have no First Amendment right to run their operations in a way that reflects their own beliefs and values. Carr and his ilk argue that social media sites are the “new public square.” But public squares are, well, public. You’re free to stand on your soapbox and pontificate to your heart’s content. Social media sites are companies. They require servers, paid staff, and other expenses. By Carr’s logic, if a private bookstore or coffee shop also became known for hosting political speakers, they’d be required to host and provide a platform for anyone else who wanted to speak, whether or not the owners agreed with that person’s views.

Trump’s plan to make the Department of Justice his personal, publicly-funded law firm will also have First Amendment ramifications. We’ll likely see him use government personnel and public resources to pursue his personal vendettas against media outlets. Don’t be surprised to see the DOJ or White House legal counsel use taxpayer resources to pursue, for example, the accusations against CBS, Washington Post, and New York Times, in which Trump claims to have suffered Dr. Evil-like damages.

Trump will likely look to red states for other ideas. Florida Republicans have tried to follow Trump’s lead by “opening up” the state’s libel laws to make it easier to sue for defamation. Their aim is to provide a vehicle for the Supreme Court to overturn NYT v. Sullivan. So far, they haven’t been able to get those bills passed. But they’re trying. And at least three Supreme Court justices seem open to the idea. Both Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have opened investigations into the advocacy group Media Matters over its report about paid ads from mainstream companies appearing next to Nazi content on X. To be clear, the Media Matters report is journalism, full stop, and these attempts to silence them to win favor with Elon Musk ought to be as embarrassing as they are illegal (they’re both). Even if none of the Trump administration’s retributive civil actions hold up in court, as we’ve seen with Musk’s own absurd lawsuit against Media Matters, Trump-friendly judges can make investigations and lawsuits as cumbersome and costly as possible. The mere threat of retaliation will likely intimidate some outlets from covering Trump critically. I would hope good journalists and editors would continue to pursue important stories regardless of these threats, but the capitulation we’ve already seen from Bezos, as well as from the corporate owners of Gannet, the L.A. Times, and other papers, bodes ill for the independence of news desks.

Criminalizing journalism

Trump and his allies have made clear that they also plan to target specific journalists. It was only about a year ago that then-Senator JD Vance sent a letter to the DOJ on official letterhead calling for a criminal investigation of journalist Robert Kagan because of a column Kagan wrote for the Washington Post. Ironically, that column was about Trump’s authoritarianism. It was arguably the single most censorious act any member of Congress has undertaken in years. The same JD Vance would later deflect Tim Walz’s debate question about January 6th by decrying . . . “censorship.” We know that the first Trump administration was already targeting journalists who cover immigration and the border. Officials kept lists of reporters who covered Trump’s immigration policy skeptically, and singled them out for “secondary screening” when they left and attempted to reenter the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials would later say they were considering opening a criminal investigation into some journalists for possible violations of the federal law that makes it illegal to “encourage or induce an alien to enter the United States.” This is the same law under which some immigration activists have been criminally prosecuted for leaving water out to migrants crossing the dessert.

[...]

Protest

Trump has made clear for decades that he has little tolerance for protest. We know from former aides that during his first term, Trump badly wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act and bring in the military to end the George Floyd demonstrations. We know that on more than one occasion he asked his aides why protesters couldn’t just be shot. We know that he has privately praised dictators in China, Venezuela, and Turkey specifically for their ruthless crackdowns on protest.

Trump was prevented from following through on his worst instincts the first time around by people like former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. In response, Trump publicly suggested that Milley is a traitor who should be executed. If we see protests after the inauguration, Trump will quickly bring in the military. How the public reacts to the ensuing violence will probably determine how violent he’ll get going forward. But Trump and the people who will run his second administration have vowed to make sure there are no Milleys or Espers this time around. Trump has made that clear with his nomination of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense. In one of his books, helpfully titled American Crusade, Hegseth warned that if Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Trump supporters would turn to violence, which he argued would be justified. He then wrote: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

[...] Expect the Trump administration to defend or, with the help of a Republican Congress, even try to federalize some of the anti-protest legislation we’ve seen from red state lawmakers — policies like “buffer zones” in which members of the public are forbidden from recording law enforcement, limiting the criminal and civil liability of people who strike protesters with their cars, and criminalizing consumer boycotts (but only those that legislators find personally objectionable). I think we’re also likely to see more Republican state legislatures — and possibly Congress — take aim at charitable bail funds. Expect to see federal and state prosecutors go after the people who operate these funds under racketeering and money laundering laws, as we’ve already seen in Georgia. Republicans will claim that these funds are fronts for terrorist groups while also attempting to expand the definition of terrorism to include “antifa,” pro-Palestine organizations, and activist groups like Black Lives Matter.

[...]

Other threats

After decades of complaining (with some merit!) about leftist hegemony on college campuses, conservative activists and Republican governors have fought back with the brute force of state coercion. Republican legislatures in dozens of states have passed bills restricting academic freedom, from banning entire fields of study at state colleges and universities to prohibiting speakers from discussing certain topics, to even barring certain words and phrases from appearing on school websites. As with every other threat to speech we’ve discussed so far, we’re already seeing too many schools preemptively surrender. Just last month, the University of Alabama threatened a professor with termination for organizing a protest against a particularly censorious bill in the state legislature.

Many of these state laws banning DEI and CRT on campus were modeled after an executive order Trump signed in 2020. There’s ample reason to think the new Trump administration will federalize this right-wing holy war on academic freedom. MAGA figures like JD Vance have cited Hungarian President Victor Orbán’s hollowing out of and taking over academia as inspiration. Project 2025 calls for withholding student loan and federal research funding from colleges and universities unless they adopt policies like eradicating DEI programs and prohibiting gender studies, critical race theory, LGTBQ studies, and other subjects that give polemicists like Chris Rufo the vapors. Same for federal contractors, recipients of federal research grants, and anyone else who gets any sort of federal subsidy.

MAGA also seems ready to embrace the idea of compelled speech. Carr, along with several state governors and AGs want to force social media sites to host content they and their users find objectionable. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced he’s opening a separate investigation into companies that don’t want to advertise on racist and far-right social media sites, either. Apparently, it’s a crime to not give Elon Musk your advertising dollars. Republican attorneys general are also using antitrust laws to silence corporate activism on issues like climate change.

Paxton and two dozen other Republican AGs also filed yet another anti-speech lawsuit, this one against against Yelp, for publishing information (that happened to also be true) that he believes to be critical of crisis pregnancy centers. As with the attack on Media Matters, the AGs are trying to silence the site under consumer protection laws. As the Reporters Committee for a Free Press warns, “The application of consumer protection laws in the context of editorial decisions — by any private speaker — is dangerous. And Texas has articulated no limiting principle that would preclude the application of the state’s consumer protection law against members of the press on a similar theory.”

Project 2025 also calls for prohibiting a list of terms and phrases from being published in any federal document. Incredibly, it also calls for retroactively removing those terms from existing documents. In the introduction to the blueprint, former Heritage head Kevin Roberts calls for the elimination of the terms “diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights,” and, in a particularly Orwellian twist, “any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.” It’s striking just how quickly the right shifted from complaining about soft censorship and content moderation on social media sites to sheer joy over the prospect of using state power shutting down dissent and silence critics. After Musk purchased Twitter, he converted the enormously influential platform into a bustling Nazi bar and far-right arm of the Trump campaign. The site is all but unusable now. For all the right’s complaints about throttling and “shadow bans,” Musk’s prioritization of accounts that pay him has effectively shunted anyone who isn’t echoing Musk’s own politics to the margins. It also means the top replies to every post tend to be racist, bigoted, trollish, or grievance-fueled garbage.

More recently, Musk has been joking/not joking about purchasing MSNBC and converting it into yet another right-wing outlet. This — along with the editorial interference of newspapers owners who are worried about government sanctions of their other businesses, is also classic authoritarian maneuvering. In Russia, Putin quickly realized that he could control newspapers and media outlets two ways — by pressuring their owners’ other business interests, and just by having his oligarch cronies simply buy them up and convert them into government mouthpieces. (He soon found it was easier to just arrange for critical journalists to fall out of windows — a habit Trump has had difficulty criticizing.) The same thing is happening in Hungary under Orbán. Setting aside whether or not Musk could actually buy MSNBC, his mere mention of the idea had right-wing personalities salivating at the idea of subverting a leading left-of-center outlet into the right-wing echo chamber.

That glee stems from a belief that conservative voices have been silenced by left-wing control of the media. This is self-evidently false. It is true that those newsrooms that still attempt to be accurate and fair — to deliver “straight news” — are disproportionately left-leaning. But it’s also true that the right has successfully created its own media ecosystem that’s wholly independent of those newsrooms, and can now bypass them entirely to get information to its audience. The sheer giddiness on display from the people about to take over the government at the prospect of snuffing these newsrooms out is alarming. Adding to the problem, Project 2025 also calls for targeting public broadcasting. That’s a longtime conservative hobbyhorse, but it would do the most harm to local public radio — not the national NPR programs that irk conservatives — and it will hit hardest in areas that lack daily newspapers.

[...]

Finally, there’s the threat to nonprofits. Here, too, the Democrats have utterly failed to prepare for the gravity of the threat. Last month, 15 House Democrats joined Republicans to pass a bill called the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. That’s far fewer than originally supported the law, which was introduced to target groups who advocate for Palestine. It was still 15 too many. The sweeping law would give the Treasury Secretary the power to unilaterally declare any nonprofit a “supporter of terrorism.” Trump could effectively shut down nonprofits for the flimsiest of reasons, from the ACLU to Planned Parenthood to ProPublica. Beyond the screaming unconstitutionality and general un-Americanness of it all, it’s just a breathtakingly stupid policy for any Democrat to support, especially just months before a man hellbent on vengeance and retribution takes over the White House.

The upcoming Trump Administration will be disaster for the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the right to dissent without fear or intimidation.

[tomorrowusa]

If you hear Republicans claiming that Trump was just joking about being a dictator, ask them this:

What would be your reaction if Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Gavin Newsom started talking about being dictators?

Trump's lickspittles continue to make excuses for his proposed totalitarianism and even push the envelope further.

MAGA Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is asking the Department of Justice to investigate Robert Kagan of the Washington Post because Kagan wrote that Democratic office holders should wage legal resistance against Trump if the latter returns to power. The irony is that Kagan is a G.H.W. Bush style conservative who served in the Reagan-era State Department. Vance is helping to prove that worry about a Trump dictatorship is well placed.

Trump's dictator babblings could backfire on him in the upcoming DC prosecution where he's being charged with attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Prosecutors could point to his dictator comments as an indication that he's still trying to overturn the rule of law.

[lemurious]

2024 Book Summary

Summarizing my yearly reading and selecting the 5 best books of the year is one of my longest personal traditions. For many years I used to put my lists on Facebook, but I quit it early in 2024, so now testing out Tumblr as an alternative, at least for my own records :).

I would love to see your lists, O Tumblrites! (pronounced like "Quirites")

Numbers: In 2024 I have read 50 books, in 4 languages.

Firsts: this year I started listening to audiobooks (especially while crocheting on long plane rides), and started reading un-abridged Latin: Seneca, Cicero, <3 Sallust <3, Tacitus, P. Cornelius Nepos, etc. I think, more Latin to solidify it in 2025, and then French in 2026! (Unless I give in and start on French earlier).

Top 5:

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (read in English, Hapgood translation because for this book translations do matter). One of the best books I have ever read. The reason for Lemur's Belated Awakening of Social Consciousness, a self-reckoning, a very practical change in certain decisions I have made about my life, and a reminder of the power of hope and progress and the radiance of the future that recalls Terra Ignota (and the character(s) I would follow to hell and back, looking at you Les Amis). I could write so much more about it; but, you might start with my pinned post.

C. Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), Bellum Catilinae A.k.a. the reason why if you know me in real life, I haven't been able to shut up about the Catilinarian conspiracy, the fact that that we mostly learn about from Cicero's In Catilinam speeches which were vehemently against it; and whether Caelius was the traitor, with his own failed rebellion recalling Catilina's 15 years later; and how Caesar spoke for clemency while Cato called for death; and Catilina's speech at his desperate last stand (I will add an excerpt in comments)...and what a shame it is that we don't have piles of books and movies about this period! (OK I loved Steven Saylor's Catilina's Riddle but I could read ten more!) I am currently in the state of "do I have to write the novel I am dying to read?" :D

Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays (Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus) read in English, Fagles translation. I read it for a Continuing Education class on the plays of Sophocles, which was a fantastic experience overall: 18 people of all ages and all walks of life spending late Wednesday nights (in person) reading and discussing plays with an absolutely wonderful professor. What it means to be a hero outside the epic; and the questions of identity, piety, family, city/state and self-determination; and absolutely gorgeous imagery.

Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War. I have read a fair number of Classical history books this year, and this was by far the best - in part because I love military history and strategy, and the author is excellent in discussing it, not just every specific decision, but the reasoning behind it, and what were the alternatives and the potential outcomes. It is a very clearly written and incredibly readable book! Of course I am a coward for not starting straight with Thucydides, but he awaits me in 2025! :D More Alcibiades! (Alcibiates, Theramenes and Thrasybulus my beloved Original Triumvirate :P)

Victor Hugo, Ninety Three. A wonderful, complex take on La Vendée in 1793. So...this was the favorite book of my grandma's, whose own family was caught between the Russian forces and the freedom fighters in the 1940s, and who became a history teacher under USSR occupation afterwards. There were a lot of things she couldn't exactly talk about in class...which meant she taught a lot of French Revolution, adored Camille Desmoulins, and told me how much she had cried while reading 1793. And it took me decades to actually realize all of that and finally read it, which is bittersweet, because my grandma had passed away two years ago and I cannot talk to her about it. (If you've read this far, call whoever you consider loved family; doesn't have to be blood related at all).

I will be starting 2025 with A Place of Greater Safety by Hillary Mantel.

Here's to so many more wonderful books to read and to discuss with friends; and to provide us with solace and inspiration in 2025! <3

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Supreme Court Overturns DOJ's Use of Key J6 Felony Court

"Today's decision means Attorney General Merrick Garland and federal judges in Washington wrongfully prosecuted roughly 350 J6ers with the post-Enron felony"

JULIE KELLY

JUN 28, 2024 In a devastating but well-deserved blow to the Department of Justice’s criminal prosecution of January 6 protesters, the U.S. Supreme Court today overturned the DOJ’s use of 18 USC 1512(c)(2), the most prevalent felony in J6 cases.

The statute, commonly referred to as “obstruction of an official proceeding,” has been applied in roughly 350 J6 cases; it also represents two of four counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s J6-related criminal indictment of Donald Trump in Washington. 

In a 6-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the “c2” subsection is tethered to the “c1” subsection that addresses tampering with a record, document, or “object.”

From the opinion:

Roberts was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the dissent (!) joined by Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Today’s decision means hundreds of Americans have been wrongfully prosecuted by Attorney General Merrick Garland as he insists his department is dedicated to upholding the “rule of law” and pursuing justice “without fear or favor.”

An Irreversible Black Eye for DOJ and Federal Courts in Washington

The matter originated in the case of Joseph Fischer, a Pennsylvania man who attended Trump’s speech and later went to the Capitol. According to court documents, Fischer briefly entered the building around 3:25 p.m., nearly an hour after the joint session of Congress to certify the electoral college votes had recessed. He exited about four minutes later.

In March 2021, a D.C. grand jury indicted Fischer on numerous counts including 1512(c)(2). The statute reads:

Whoever corruptly— 

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or 

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.

It is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Fischer, in addition to many J6ers facing the count, asked his judge to dismiss the charge. Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by Trump, dismissed the count against Fischer and two other defendants by finding the language in the post-Enron/Arthur Anderson statute covered tampering with records or documents not interrupting a meeting of Congress. The DOJ appealed Nichols’ decision.

In December, SCOTUS granted Fischer’s petition to grant cert seeking to reverse the appellate court’s mandate. Oral arguments were held on April 16.

Nichols is the only judge to have dismissed the count; 18 district and circuit court judges in Washington refused to dismiss the count. The judges essentially enabled the Biden DOJ’s unlawful pursuit of Americans who protested Biden’s election that day.

The List of Shame:

Judge Beryl Howell (Obama, former chief judge)

Judge James Boasberg (Obama, current chief judge)

Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama)

Judge Trevor McFadden (Trump)

Judge John Bates (GW Bush)

Judge Amit Mehta (Obama)

Judge Dabny Friedrich (Trump)

Judge Royce Lamberth (Reagan)

Judge Richard Leon (GW Bush)

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (Clinton)

Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Obama)

Judge Timothy Kelly (Trump)

Judge Randolph Moss (Clinton)

Judge Paul Friedman (Clinton)

Judge Christopher Cooper (Obama)

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Florence Pan (Biden)—Pan wrote both appellate court decisions upholding 1512c2

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker (Trump)

D.C. Circuit Court Judge Cornelia Pillard

There Goes Your Summer, Your Honor

The federal courthouse in Washington has been bracing for a flood of motions post-Fischer; a few judges have released individuals from prison in anticipation of a reversal. Roughly 110 J6ers have been sentenced to prison on 1512(c)(2) convictions; several J6ers were held under pretrial detention for being charged with the nonviolent obstruction count alone.

But despite the law’s legal limbo over the past year, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee, continued to indict J6ers on 1512(c)(2) while some judges continued to sentence those convicted to lengthy prison terms. Last month, Beryl Howell, the former chief judge who upheld the 1512(c)(2) charges for defendants in her courtroom, sentenced a Missouri man to 60 months in prison for the 1512 conviction and assault on police.

In January 2022, Howell gave the green light for her colleagues to support the DOJ’s use of the obstruction count. Here is what she said in denying a motion to dismiss filed by two J6ers:

“For over 200 years, the peaceful transition of power from one presidential administration to another has been marked with Congress's certification of the Electoral College vote; and this event has been respectfully observed by American citizens, but not on January 6, 2021. And I start with this historical fact because what happened on January 6th was a chilling new type of criminal conduct to which our criminal laws have never before had to be applied. Application of criminal laws to conduct never before seen, like what occurred on January 6, 2021, appropriately generates the kind of legal questions the defendants raise here about whether the criminal law fits the charged criminal conduct.”

The first judge to uphold the obstruction charge in J6 cases was Trump-appointee Dabny Friedrich. In 2021, she agreed that interrupting a meeting of Congress met the definition of “official proceeding” and that the statute’s broad language did not require the government to prove the conduct involved tampering with records or documents.

Ironically—or not—Friedrich is married to Matthew Friedrich, a former DOJ official who worked on the Enron Task Force alongside Andrew Weissman and current deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco. The 1512(c)(2) statute was a product of the Enron/Arthur Anderson investigation; Weissmann, as the lead prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the bogus Russiagate probe, pushed the DOJ to charge Trump with 1512(c)(2) while in office.

Retired judge Thomas Hogan recently warned how a SCOTUS’s reversal of 1512(c)(2) would affect the DC courthouse. Here is Hogan, who upheld the statute in J6 prosecutions, with former DOJ official and FISAgate mastermind Mary McCord:

Reacting to the SCOTUS decision, Geri Perna, aunt of Matthew Perna, told me this by email:

“When Matthew was unexpectedly charged with the felony of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding—after initially facing only misdemeanors—his world collapsed. The weight of a potential lengthy prison sentence bore down on him, filling his days with insurmountable worry and anxiety. At that time, there was no glimmer of hope that this severe charge would be dropped.

Matthew has now been dead for 28 months. In the wake of his passing, the Supreme Court of the United States is finally set to rule on whether the Department of Justice wrongfully applied 1512(c)(2) in January 6 cases. As much as I am hopeful for a just ruling in favor of the January 6 defendants, I am consumed by a profound sense of loss and anger. My nephew's death was both avoidable and senseless.

I feel cheated, and if that sounds selfish, then so be it. The pain of losing Matthew under such circumstances is a burden I carry every day. I fervently hope that those responsible for wielding this charge erroneously will be held accountable in a court of law. However, I am not holding my breath.”