#high crimes and misdemeanors

[tomorrowusa]

Apparently even the debate fly has abandoned Mike Pence. 🪰

He'll probably eventually endorse Trump just like the 99% of spineless Republicans.

Peter Meijer was a GOP House member who then lost his seat because of a MAGA primary challenger; BTW, a Democrat now holds that seat.

Meijer, now a GOP candidate for nomination to the US Senate, says he would support Trump in 2024 – even though his impeachment vote implied that he thinks Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. huh? 🤔

GOP Senate Candidate Says He Stands By His Vote to Impeach Trump Over Jan. 6, But Will Still Support Him In 2024

Republicans have lost all trace of scruples. Political courage in the GOP is on the borderline between highly endangered and extinct.

It might be fun to start a pool regarding what day (or week) Mike Pence finally endorses Trump. Perhaps Pence will announce, "I've decided to hang with Donald Trump!"

[eriexplosion]

I'm still thinking of those supposed TBB season 2 leaks and honestly I hope they're true not only because the idea of Omega having a crush on Katooni is so fucking cute but also actually I would love to see Rex, upstanding Captain, have an affair with the human embodiment of a raccoon with little grabby hands. He found a whole girl in the dumpster and he thinks he might be in love with her. She is stealing the credits out of his back pocket.

[giannic]

High crimes and misdemeanors - Wikipedia

[herpsandbirds]

Local Magpie choosing an interesting and novel perch, ft. One of my town’s utterly fearless mule deer committing garden crimes

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS...

[highonfilms]

10 Best Films of Woody Allen

[the-peculiarity-of-anonymity]

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Just a section of the constitution for yall.

Also, this is a reminder that in the constitution it states that if the government becomes a dictatorship or something similar we have every right to storm the capital and shoot them. Legally.

[simply-ivanka]

Trump’s Trial Violated Due Process

Trump was denied notice of the charges, meaningful opportunity to respond and proof of all elements.

By 

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley

Wall Street Journal

Whether you love, hate or merely tolerate Donald Trump, you should care about due process, which is fundamental to the rule of law. New York’s trial of Mr. Trump violated basic due-process principles.

“No principle of procedural due process is more clearly established than that notice of the specific charge,” the Supreme Court stated in Cole v. Arkansas (1948), “and a chance to be heard in a trial of the issues raised by that charge, if desired, [is] among the constitutional rights of every accused in a criminal proceeding in all courts, state or federal.” In in re Winship (1970), the justices affirmed that “the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” These three due-process precepts—notice, meaningful opportunity to defend, and proof of all elements—were absent in Mr. Trump’s trial.

The state offense with which Mr. Trump was indicted, “falsifying business records,” requires proof of an “intent to defraud.” To elevate this misdemeanor to a felony, the statute requires proof of “intent to commit another crime.” In People v. Bloomfield (2006), the state’s highest court observed that “intent to commit another crime” is an indispensable element of the felony offense.

New York courts have concluded that the accused need not be convicted of the other crime since an “intent to commit” it is sufficient to satisfy the statute. But because that intent is, in the words of Winship, “a fact necessary to constitute the crime,” it is an element of felony falsification. Due process requires that the defendant receive timely notice of the other crime he allegedly intended to commit. It also requires that he have opportunity to defend against that accusation and that prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt his intent to commit it.

Mr. Trump’s indictment didn’t specify the other crime he allegedly intended to commit. Prosecutors didn’t do so during the trial either. Only after the evidentiary phase of the trial did Judge Juan Merchan reveal that the other crime was Section 17-152 of New York’s election law, which makes it a misdemeanor to engage in a conspiracy “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”

To recap, the prosecution involved (1) a misdemeanor elevated to a felony based on an “intent to commit another crime,” (2) an indictment and trial that failed to specify, or present evidence establishing, another crime the defendant intended to commit, and (3) a jury instruction that the other crime was one that necessitated further proof of “unlawful means.” It’s a Russian-nesting-doll theory of criminality: The charged crime hinged on the intent to commit another, unspecified crime, which in turn hinged on the actual commission of yet another unspecified offense.

To make matters worse, Judge Merchan instructed the jury: “Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.”

Due process demands that felony verdicts be unanimous, but in Schad v. Arizona (1991), a murder case, the high court indicated that there need not be unanimity regarding the means by which a crime is committed. But a plurality opinion by Justice David Souter cautioned that if the available means of committing a crime are so capacious that the accused is not “in a position to understand with some specificity the legal basis of the charge against him,” due process will be violated. “Nothing in our history suggests that the Due Process Clause would permit a State to convict anyone under a charge of ‘Crime’ so generic that any combination of jury findings of embezzlement, reckless driving, murder, burglary, tax evasion, or littering, for example, would suffice for conviction,” Justice Souter wrote.

Justice Antonin Scalia concurred, observing that “one can conceive of novel ‘umbrella’ crimes (a felony consisting of either robbery or failure to file a tax return) where permitting a 6-to-6 verdict would seem contrary to due process.” Four dissenting justices argued that the In re Winship precedent requires unanimity regarding all elements of a crime, including the means by which it’s committed.

All nine justices in Schad, then, believed unanimity is required to convict when the means by which a crime can be committed are so broad that the accused doesn’t receive fair notice of the basis of the charge. New York’s election law requires that the violation occur “by unlawful means,” so any “unlawful” act—including, in Scalia’s example, either robbery of failure to file a tax return—can qualify. That’s clearly overbroad. Thus, Judge Merchan’s instruction that the jury “need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were” was unconstitutional.

That isn’t all. Judge Merchan hand-selected three laws—federal election law, falsification of “other” business records and “violation of tax laws”—as the “unlawful means” by which state election law was violated. Mr. Trump received no notice of any of these offenses, and the prosecutor briefly alluded only to federal election law, during the trial. Mr. Trump tried to call former Federal Election Commission Chairman Brad Smith to explain why this law wasn’t violated, but Judge Merchan ruled Mr. Smith couldn’t testify on whether Mr. Trump’s conduct “does or does not constitute a violation” of federal election law, denying him a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Judge Merchan’s second “unlawful” means, falsification of other business records, is circular: A misdemeanor becomes a felony if one falsifies business records by falsifying business records. Further, the prosecution never alleged or provided evidence that Mr. Trump falsified “other” business records. The prosecutors likewise neither alleged nor offered evidence that Mr. Trump had violated tax laws, Judge Merchan’s third predicate.

Mr. Trump, like all criminal defendants, was entitled to due process. The Constitution demands that higher courts throw out the verdict against him. That takes time, however, and is unlikely to occur before the election. That unfortunate reality will widen America’s political divide and fuel the suspicion that Mr. Trump’s prosecution wasn’t about enforcing the law but wounding a presidential candidate for the benefit of his opponent.

Mr. Rivkin served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. Ms. Foley is a professor of constitutional law at Florida International University College of Law. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.

[shushmal]

Stranger to Myself (I think of Home)

For @steddie-week Day 5! Rated T — Check the tags and content warnings!

Eddie is a monster.

Eddie started watching Steve because it didn’t hurt so bad. Didn’t hurt like it does with every glimpse he catches of Wayne, of Dustin. The people who had loved Eddie when he was Eddie. But Steve—Steve was safe. Steve was a boy Eddie knew in passing glances and high school gossip, a guy who was laughing with his friends in another room at every party, a man who planted his feet and fought monsters and helped save the world. Steve who told Eddie to be safe, because Steve was kind when he didn't have to be, when he wasn't expected to—so Eddie finds himself watching Steve instead.

Because Eddie is a monster, and Steve knows exactly what to do with monsters. Eddie knows this.

To Steve, it wouldn't matter that Eddie is the last little bit of the apocalypse still kicking around Hawkins. Eddie who had been chewed up and spat out of hell at the last second, just before the final dungeon slammed shut, sneaking through the shadows unseen, past the unsuspecting heroes wrapped up in their victory. Past his friends, the people who had tried to keep Eddie safe. Past Dustin, who’s face had already been changed by grief.

Past Steve, as well. Steve, who told Eddie to be safe, and Eddie hadn’t.

Eddie wonders sometimes, what Vecna really had in mind for him. 

But Eddie is just an unfinished experiment, not quite who he used to be, but not yet the thing Vecna had been trying to twist him into, before the wrinkly ballsack bastard bit it and disintegrated into dust like some b-grade horror movie villain written by some unimaginative hack that shouldn’t have even been in the writer’s room.

He’s the last piece of the Upside Down, Vecna’s last monster, but Eddie’s worst crime post-resurrection is a bit of misdemeanor stalking, simple battery, and animal cruelty. A guy’s gotta eat, afterall. It had taken a while to figure out his own exact brand of vampirism, but Eddie’s gone a few years now without killing anything or anyone. He would be proud of it, but instead he watches Steve make dinner and feels sick on the aftertaste of iron and salt still coating his tongue.

Eddie had started watching Steve because it didn’t hurt, because Steve would take care of it, if Eddie ever needed to be put down. Eddie knows this.

So, it didn’t hurt so bad to watch Steve—until it did. 

By then, Eddie was too far gone and couldn’t stop.

His Steve who came back to his lonely castle, days and days after that final battle, after the climax of the story, the end of a legend, still bloody and scorched, none the wiser to the monster peering through his windows, watching. And that was Eddie’s first clue, that was how Eddie first learned that he wasn’t really Eddie anymore—that nervous energy he used to have in life had died with him. Now he sits motionless in the tall pines behind Steve’s house for hours and days, unmoving, as he watches Steve live. 

Sometimes, Steve looks out his window, eyes scanning the treetops like he knows Eddie’s there. Everytime, Eddie sits up a little straighter, like a dog eager for attention. But everytime, Steve’s eyes drift past him, unseeing, searching.

It leaves Eddie—already out of step with life, with humanity—a little unsettled, a little too hopeful. Eddie is a thing that shouldn’t be seen ever again, a dead man without a heartbeat, without breath in his lungs, without a reason to exist and yet still here. He wishes he were still dead. He wishes even more that Steve knew he was there, that Steve was looking for him. But Eddie knows better. Eddie can’t go to Steve, because Eddie is a monster and Steve has fought enough monsters. Eddie doesn’t want to get added to the list. He doesn’t want to do that to Steve.

Eddie sits in the trees instead, unmoving and watching for days and weeks. Sometimes he leaves, to feed. Sometimes he stands in the middle of Steve’s empty house when he’s gone, breathing in the lonely silence. Sometimes, he closes his eyes and dreams.

But they’re never his own dreams.

And he never, ever visits anyone else in their sleep, in their dreams and nightmares. No one, except for Steve. His Steve, who’s dreaming of a summer day, sun high in the sky, sitting on the top of skull rock with a six pack and a cigarette. It’s such a simple, beautiful dream. All of Steve’s dreams are like that. Eddie watches the line of Steve’s neck as he tilts his head back in the sunlight, face catching the July warmth.

Steve doesn’t startle when Eddie sits beside him. Just leans in until his head rests on Eddie’s shoulder. It’s beautiful, he’s so beautiful, Eddie wants to cry.

“I miss you,” Steve whispers, like it’s a secret. He presses a smile into Eddie’s jacket. “Isn’t that silly? I barely even knew you.”

Eddie has to swallow back the emotion filling his throat. “Yeah, that’s pretty silly,” he croaks.

“I wanted to though,” Steve sighs. He leans even closer, hands grasping at Eddie’s sleeve, the back of his shirt, and Eddie wishes they could melt into each other, become one thing, become Steve with just Eddie hiding between Steve’s ribs, in his blood, sitting in the center of his chest right next to his heart. “I wanted to know you. I wanted to kiss you so bad.”

If this were real, if they were really sitting on skull rock in the sunlight right now, if Eddie was human, he would be crying. But here, in Steve’s dream, he doesn’t, can’t. Maybe Steve doesn’t want him to be sad.

“Really?” he breathes instead. “Me?”

Steve hums, his hand sliding down into Eddie’s, fingers warm, soft. “Robin calls you my Great Bisexual Awakening.”

Eddie barks a laugh, throwing his head back. He wants to be sobbing, but he laughs instead and when he stops, Steve is looking up at him, painted dream soft and sweet. They watch each other, Eddie cataloging the specks of gold and green in Steve’s eyes. He’s beautiful. 

But then Steve blinks, and the corner of his mouth turns down, smile falling away. Eddie feels his skin prickle. He feels watched.

“I miss you,” Steve says again, urgent. And then, just like that, he smiles again, and the feeling’s gone, and Steve presses his face once more into Eddie’s shoulder. “Tell me something.”

Eddie tries to shake off the feeling of disquiet, to relax back into the tenderness of Steve’s dream. “Like what?”’

“Something I don’t know.” He’s beautiful, so beautiful, and Eddie adores him, loves him so much.

“I wanted to kiss you, too.”

Eddie opens his eyes, his breath sharp in the silent forest, and watches as Steve sits up in his bed, gripping the blankets tight in his fists. Even from here, in his haven in the trees, he can see the tears on Steve’s face. He never wants Steve to cry.

When morning comes, he steals into Steve’s home, buries himself in the lingering warmth of his sheets after Steve leaves for work. The fading smell of him is intoxicating, even the salty sting of Steve’s tears, and Eddie wants so desperately. Wants him from the pain in his throat, the hitch in his breath, the way he’s been hollowed from the inside out. Everything has been taken out of Eddie, scooped from between his ribs and scraped smooth, an empty jack o’lantern waiting to rot on the front step. 

The wanting is worse than the starving, the thirst. Eddie can’t cry anymore, he isn’t human enough to, but he wishes he could.

Instead, he lays in Steve’s bed, breathes him in, and disappears into the woods behind Steve’s home when he hears the rumble of Steve’s car turn onto the street. He watches as Steve falls into the bed, long gone cold since Eddie has soaked up all the warmth from the blankets in the long hours of Steve's absence. He watches, a monster, as Steve’s eyes glance through the window, eyes on the trees. Straightens up, hoping and wanting, and slumps as that gaze slides past him. He watches Steve’s evening with longing building in his chest, and when Steve slips beneath his covers, Eddie closes his eyes.

“What are you waiting for?” he asks.

Steve is sitting on the edge of his roof in this dream, watching the forest intently. He doesn’t turn his head towards Eddie, caught on a particular spot in the woods.

“You, I think. At least, I think it’s you. I hope it’s you.”

Eddie leans in close, hoping that Steve will turn his eyes, to look at Eddie, to give him that sweet, dreamy smile. “You shouldn’t bother waiting for something like me,” he tells Steve, desperate for those pretty eyes to look at him. “You should be happy.”

“I am happy,” Steve murmurs. He doesn’t look happy. He doesn’t look at Eddie. He watches the distant trees, standing guard. “I’m happy waiting. I think I can wait forever.”

Eddie doesn’t dare touch him, doesn’t dare turn Steve’s head. Even though it hurts. It hurts so bad, so Eddie opens his eyes. In the distance, Steve turns in his bed, chest expanding with a sleepy sigh, and doesn’t leave his dreams.

Morning comes again, and the night falls again, morning and night and morning. Eddie rises from his perch, glides closer to the empty house to steal through the unlocked door. He lays in Steve’s bed, in the shadow of Steve’s warmth left on the sheets. Breathes him in, even though Eddie needs no air. He leaves when he hears the rumble of a familiar engine. Night falls. He closes his eyes.

Eddie watches the way Steve sits on the edge of his roof again, feet dangling, eyes scanning the treeline at the back of his house, quiet and sentry. Like he’s waiting for another monster to appear between the tree trunks. Eddie sits beside him, and doesn’t speak, not even when Steve whispers, only once.

“I miss you.”

Morning comes again, and then night. Sun and moon, wax and wane. The summer heat does not bother Eddie, nor does the winter snow. He imagines building a family of snowmen in Steve’s yard, company for a lonely house. No one visits Steve here. Like they’d forgotten Steve altogether, and Eddie’s the only one left to bear witness to Steve Harrington. Steve who is lonely, who sleeps and dreams and waits for the monster in the woods. Or maybe…

Maybe Steve told them not to come here. Because here is only for Steve, and only for Eddie.

Night falls, and then the morning breaks. Steve doesn’t rise from the bed.

Uneasily, Eddie shifts. Snow slides from his shoulders, landing in heavy thumps on the forest floor below him. He watches as Steve rolls onto his back, arm over his eyes, mouth twisted in pain. Even from here, he can see the tears on Steve’s face. He watches Steve lay in bed the entire day, until night falls. Eddie closes his eyes.

Steve’s dream isn’t a dream this time—a vast darkness instead, stretching long and far. Eddie takes a hesitant step. Water splashes beneath his bare foot. He turns.

And suddenly, it’s like he can hear Steve in his ear, whispering, “I’m happy waiting. I think I can wait forever.”

Eddie turns again, and Steve is there, watching, waiting. Eddie feels the instinct of it, the prickling awareness of being seen. It settles over his skin, sharp and biting like ants. Eddie is the monster, and Steve has found him. His gaze roots Eddie where he stands, water lapping against his toes. The ripples roll away from him, stretching the unreachable distance between Eddie and Steve, distant stars, until they crash against Steve’s feet, and the water settles again, falls calm.

“I miss you though,” Steve whispers, right into Eddie’s ear. “I can wait forever, but I miss you.”

“Really?” Eddie asks. It echoes through the dark. He can see the way Steve smiles, even from so far away.

“Of course,” Steve whispers. “I’m waiting for—”

Dawn breaks through the trees, and Eddie opens his eyes with a gasp. The sound is sharp through the silent forest. Morning mist rises from the pine strewn ground. Steve isn’t in his bed anymore, and Eddie feels himself almost panic, gaze searching.

Searching, until he finds Steve, not even three feet up, sitting above his window on the roof. He stares out into the trees, stares right at Eddie, finally sees the monster in the woods. That gaze raises the hair on Eddie’s arm, animal instinct tightening his muscles, his bones. Steve watches him from his perch on the roof, watches Eddie watch him back. 

He’s the most beautiful thing Eddie’s ever seen.

Because Steve’s not standing guard. He’s waiting. Waiting for the thing in the woods, for Eddie to finally come home.

Eddie shouldn’t, shouldn’t go to him, but now that he knows, how can he make Steve wait a moment longer? 

Steve gasps when he appears, but it’s not fear in his eyes when he looks at Eddie. Eddie feels it again, feels watched, feels seen. Steve looks up at him and his smile is the most beautiful thing Eddie’s ever seen.

“There you are,” he whispers. “I missed you."

[hyperdragon97]

KITTERS

x

[giannic]

High crimes and misdemeanors - Wikipedia

[contemplatingoutlander]

The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Dana Milbank does a masterful job of describing just how dysfunctional the House GOP members have been in the past two years.

This is a gift🎁link for the entire article. Below are some highlights:

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. [...] “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.” [...] Today, Johnson’s run looks anything but heaven-sent. In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

The above article was adapted from Dana Milbank's (2024) book: Fools on the HILL: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House.

[See more below the cut.]

And this is on top of the well-known pratfalls: The 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker, the 22-day shutdown of the House to find another speaker, the routine threats of government shutdowns and a near-default on the federal debt that hurt the nation’s credit rating. They devoted 18 months to a failed attempt to impeach Biden, which produced nothing but Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly displaying posters of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts. One “whistleblower” defected to Russia, another worked with Russian intelligence and is under indictment for fabricating his claims, and still another is on the lam, evading charges of being a Chinese agent. As soon as Biden withdrew his candidacy, they promptly forgot their probe of Biden’s “corruption” and rushed to launch a new series of investigations into Kamala Harris (over her record on border security) and Tim Walz (over his military service and “cozy relationship” with China). After a number of failed attempts, they did impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (the first such action against a Cabinet officer since 1876) without identifying any high crimes or misdemeanors he had committed; the Senate dismissed the articles without a trial. House Republicans created a “weaponization committee” under the excitable Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), but it was panned even by right-wing commentators when it produced little more than a list of conspiracy theories from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. They lapsed repeatedly into fits of censure resolutions, contempt citations and other pointless acts of vengeance. In all of its history, the House had voted to censure one of its own members only seven times; in the two weeks after Johnson became speaker, members of the House tried to censure each other eight times. [...] In lieu of consequential legislating, they passed bills such as the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act. On the House floor, the Republican majority suffered one failure after another, even on routine procedural votes. Seven times (and counting), House Republicans voted down their own leaders’ routine attempts to begin floor debates — something that hadn’t happened once in the previous 20 years.

[deadpresidents]

"Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback for a second term that he says will be devoted to "retribution."

In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party Presidential candidate, much less President, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.

His persecution defense, the notion that he gets in so much trouble only because everyone is out to get him, resonates at his rallies where he says "they're not coming after me, they're coming after you, and I'm just standing in the way." But that of course belies a record of scandal stretching across his 78 years starting long before politics. Whether in his personal life or his public life, he has been accused of so many acts of wrongdoing, investigated by so many prosecutors and agencies, sued by so many plaintiffs and claimants that it requires a scorecard just to remember them all.

His businesses went bankrupt repeatedly and multiple others failed. He was taken to court for stiffing his vendors, stiffing his bankers and even stiffing his own family. He avoided the draft during the Vietnam War and avoiding paying any income taxes for years. He was forced to shell out tens of millions of dollars to students who accused him of scamming them, found liable for wide-scale business fraud and had his real estate firm convicted in criminal court of tax crimes.

He has boasted of grabbing women by their private parts, been reported to have cheated on all three of his wives and been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, including one whose account was validated by a jury that found him liable for sexual abuse after a civil trial.

He is the only President in American history impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, the only President ever indicted on criminal charges and the only President to be convicted of a felony (34, in fact). He used the authority of his office to punish his adversaries and tried to hold onto power on the basis of a brazen lie.

Mr. Trump beat some of the investigations and lawsuits against him and some proved unfounded, but the sheer volume is remarkable. Any one of those scandals by itself would typically have been enough to derail another politician...Not Mr. Trump. He has moved from one furor to the next without any of them sinking into the body politic enough to end his career. The unrelenting pace of scandals may in its own way help him by keeping any single one of them from dominating the national conversation and eroding his standing with his base of supporters...And victory next month may yet help him escape the biggest threat of all -- potentially prison."

-- Peter Baker, laying out very plainly how insane it is that America could very well elect Donald Trump as President once again, in the New York Times. I really hope you'll take the time to read the whole article, which I am sharing gift links to in order to bypass the paywall, and remember just what is on the line on November 5th.

(Please feel free to copy and share this gift link to anyone and everyone that you think needs to read this immensely important article in the next two weeks.)

[hyperdragon97]

KITTERS AND PUPPERS

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 1, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 02, 2024

Today the United States Supreme Court overthrew the central premise of American democracy: that no one is above the law. 

It decided that the president of the United States, possibly the most powerful person on earth, has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for crimes committed as part of the official acts at the core of presidential powers. The court also said it should be presumed that the president also has immunity for other official acts as well, unless that prosecution would not intrude on the authority of the executive branch.

This is a profound change to our fundamental law—an amendment to the Constitution, as historian David Blight noted. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that a president needs such immunity to make sure the president is willing to take “bold and unhesitating action” and make unpopular decisions, although no previous president has ever asserted that he is above the law or that he needed such immunity to fulfill his role. Roberts’s decision didn’t focus at all on the interest of the American people in guaranteeing that presidents carry out their duties within the guardrails of the law. 

But this extraordinary power grab does not mean President Joe Biden can do as he wishes. As legal commentator Asha Rangappa pointed out, the court gave itself the power to determine which actions can be prosecuted and which cannot by making itself the final arbiter of what is “official” and what is not. Thus any action a president takes is subject to review by the Supreme Court, and it is reasonable to assume that this particular court would not give a Democrat the same leeway it would give Trump. 

There is no historical or legal precedent for this decision. The Declaration of Independence was a litany of complaints against King George III designed to explain why the colonists were declaring themselves free of kings; the Constitution did not provide immunity for the president, although it did for members of Congress in certain conditions, and it provided for the removal of the president for “high crimes and misdemeanors”—what would those be if a president is immune from prosecution for his official acts? The framers worried about politicians’ overreach and carefully provided for oversight of leaders; the Supreme Court today smashed through that key guardrail. 

Presidential immunity is a brand new doctrine. In February 2021, explaining away his vote to acquit Trump for inciting an insurrection, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had also protected Trump in his first impeachment trial in 2019, said: “Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office…. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation, and former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

But it was not just McConnell who thought that way. At his confirmation hearing in 2005, now–Chief Justice John Roberts said: “I believe that no one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution, and statutes.” 

In his 2006 confirmation hearings, Samuel Alito said: “There is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law.” 

And in 2018, Brett Kavanaugh told the Senate: “No one’s above the law in the United States, that’s a foundational principle…. We’re all equal before the law…. The foundation of our Constitution was that…the presidency would not be a monarchy…. [T]he president is not above the law, no one is above the law.”

Now they have changed that foundational principle for a man who, according to White House officials during his term, called for the execution of people who upset him and who has vowed to exact vengeance on those he now thinks have wronged him. Over the past weekend, Trump shared an image on social media saying that former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who sat on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, was guilty of treason and calling for “televised military tribunals” to try her. 

Today, observers illustrated what Trump’s newly declared immunity could mean. Political scientist Norm Ornstein pointed out that Trump could “order his handpicked FBI Director to arrest and jail his political opponents. He can order the IRS to put liens on the property of media companies who criticize him and jail reporters and editors.” Legal analyst Joyce White Vance noted that a president with such broad immunity could order the assassination of Supreme Court justices, and retired military leader Mark Hertling wrote that he was “trying to figure out how a commander can refuse an illegal order from someone who is issuing it as an official act.” 

Asha Rangappa wrote: “According to the Court, a President could literally provide the leader of a hostile adversary with intelligence needed to win a conflict in which we are involved, or even attack or invade the U.S., and not be prosecuted for treason, because negotiating with heads of state is an exclusive Art. II function. In case you were wondering.” Trump is currently under indictment for retaining classified documents. “The Court has handed Trump, if he wins this November, carte blanche to be a ‘dictator on day one,’ and the ability to use every lever of official power at his disposal for his personal ends without any recourse,” Rangappa wrote. “This election is now a clear-cut decision between democracy and autocracy. Vote accordingly.”

Trump’s lawyers are already challenging Trump’s conviction in the election interference case in which a jury found him guilty on 34 counts. Over Trump’s name on social media, a post said the decision was “BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND CLEARS THE STENCH FROM THE BIDEN TRIALS AND HOAXES, ALL OF THEM, THAT HAVE BEEN USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR, OR WITHER INTO OBSCURITY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife was deeply involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, also took a shot at the appointment of special counsels to investigate such events. Thomas was not the only Justice whose participation in this decision was likely covered by a requirement that he recuse himself: Alito has publicly expressed support for the attempt to keep Trump in office against the will of voters. Trump appointed three of the other justices granting him immunity—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—to the court.

In a dissent in which Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that because of the majority’s decision, "[t]he relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."

“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy,” she wrote, “I dissent.” 

Today’s decision destroyed the principle on which this nation was founded, that all people in the United States of America should be equal before the law.

The name of the case is “Donald J. Trump v. United States.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[antoine-roquentin]

Biden’s nominating a former judge who ran a debtor’s prison where her salary and office expenses came out of the fees she charged criminals, incentivizing the harshest penalties possible, to serve as the federal government’s chief prosecutor in New Orleans:

Keva Landrum locks down nomination for U.S. Attorney, source says (March 31, 2023)

President Joe Biden's administration is expected soon to formally nominate Keva Landrum, a former Orleans Parish criminal court judge, to serve as U.S. attorney in New Orleans, according to a source with knowledge of the process. The move comes nearly two years after The Times-Picayune reported she became the top choice for the prestigious post....

Just what held up her nomination remains a mystery. 

A D.A. Runoff Will Decide New Orleans’ Criminal Justice Future (Nov 23, 2020)

This messaging matches parts of Landrum’s record. During her time as DA, she drew fire for coming down hard on marijuana possession. She prosecuted repeat offenses as felonies, charges that could result in five to 20 years in prison. Before her term, the office routinely treated such cases as misdemeanors, which carry much lower penalties. Critics accused her of racking up felony convictions to make it appear that the DA’s office was tackling violent crime after New Orleans was declared a “murder capital.”...

According to the magazine Antigravity, lawyers familiar with her practices told the magazine that Landrum regularly inflicted high bonds and long sentences as a criminal court judge. 

Appeals court mulls 'debtors' prison' lawsuit against New Orleans judges (April 30, 2019)

Federal appeals court judges heard arguments Tuesday on whether state judges in New Orleans crossed a legal line by squeezing poor defendants for fines and fees that made up a big chunk of the state court's budget.

In an August decision, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance said that it was a violation of the U.S. Constitution for the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court judges who rely heavily on fines and fees to also decide if defendants could pay them.

She said the judges also could no longer jail anyone for failing to pay court costs until the defendants had a chance to plead poverty in a “neutral forum.”

Since the ruling, Orleans judges have received a $3.8 million cash infusion from the City Council that more than plugs the budget hole from Vance's decision and another from a loss of bail fees.

Nevertheless, the judges appealed both rulings, which could hobble their ability to collect court costs in the future. Chief Judge Keva Landrum-Johnson said they did so on the advice of attorneys.