“This is B.S.—you were doing this as a dilatory tactic to help your political friend,” says Rachel Maddow on the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the Trump immunity argument, delaying his coup trial. “And for you to say that this is something that the Court needs to decide because it’s something that’s unclear in the law is just flagrant, flagrant bullpucky.”

  • quindraco@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Smith asked SCOTUS to do this months ago. Refusing him then but taking the case up now seems pretty shitty.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s not just “pretty shitty;” it’s blatant corruption favoring Trump.

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    9 months ago

    Why are people not ready to riot over this? People should be in the streets and setting cars on fire.

    The highest court in the land just made a move so corrupt and blatant that there is no defense of it. They’re helping a criminal insurrectionist ex-president escape charges. Are you kidding me?! This is a complete delegitimization of an entire branch of governments highest office with life appointments.

    Not only did they not need to take the case but they set it up to delay his trials as long as possible. Meaning that now, his trials WILL LIKELY NOT HAPPEN BEFORE THE ELECTION.

    At best we might get a verdict on one or two before the election but sentencing will not take place and that is IF there are no other delays. Those are slim chances.

    So yes America will be heading to the polls this November with Trump facing potentially zero responsibility for his actions, maybe found guilty before January, whereupon he could be sworn in and cancel his own trials or could pardon himself.

    This court has just shown they would allow him to do that. Why else take this case if not a blatant desire to unfairly install Trump as president? There’s no reason. What I’m telling you is that he won’t face justice if he wins the election. And this just increased his chances of winning dramatically.

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      9 months ago

      Because the police in the US are not bound by the Geneva Convention nor rule of law. Because the middle class is lucky if it is buried in a mortgage, student loans, inflation, and multiple jobs and is too scared to do anything to lose anything else.

      And look at the Seattle CHOP. Or Portland riots. Or the ones in the middle of the country. Or in Rochester, NY. WHERE WERE YOU THEN ? Were you in thee streets fighting the armed, far right terrorists ?

      Or anywhere Black Lives Matter because black Americans are the ones leading a route to change and often without support as people say “Why aren’t we rioting ?” We rioted in Atlanta. We riot in Missouri.

      • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Well in Seattle, before CHOP, that bitch ass east precinct started all the violence on cap hill, every single night. Then abandoned shop as if they were under attack, which they weren’t.

        “THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES”

        and those far right terrorists? Yea, those were ICE and BP in unmarked cars, in civilian clothing, pulling up throwing bags over people’s heads and throwing them in the trunk. People just walking home from work, not even involved. Pure fucking terrorism. That’s what Trump levied against the PNW.

        I’m not fucking kidding either. This whole place is fucked, not even worth the paper the bullshit sanitized lies we were raised on.

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          9 months ago

          Oh yeah during the protests they totally arrested people who were just outside their own apartments. It’s fucking ridiculous.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          How many felonies does convicted rapist Trump have pending?

          You’re right, America don’t have time for that.

          If Trump weren’t such a dip shit, he could’ve sold red MAGA facemasks, establish a new mint to meet his payout, and kept the 11000 votes he needed in Georgia alive and won reelection. Substantially more than 11k Republican voters had died in GA between Jan 2020 and Nov 2020.

          His negligence killed his own voters. That’s not 4D chess. That’s dumbstruck stupidity at the highest level.

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      9 months ago

      Why are people not ready to riot over this?

      Ask what happened to the BLM protesters. Ask what happened to the climate change protesters. Hell, ask what happened to ACORN and Code Pink.

      We’re dealing with some serious selection bias. The folks that have, historically, lead the charge on street protests have been rounded up and shut down. Surveillance technologies rapidly identify individuals organizing nascent movements. Police informants are disbatched to infiltrate, disrupt, and arrest activists Organization leaders end up shot dead inside burning cars or killed in a hail of gunfire by police or hounded between countries by extradition proceedings or bombed to death in their neighborhoods by city cops.

      First they came for the Communists, and I said nothing, because fuck 'dem tankies…

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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      I love it.

      If there’s no respect for the law at the top, why the fuck should any of us have any respect for it?

      If you wanna be rich you gotta do what the rich do right? Bring on some fucking anarchy, America’s been getting primed since Newt Gingrich for a purge, dumb motherfucking out of touch 1% think they’re gonna survive it. How’d that work for em in the movies?

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        the right has been licking their lips for a purge for a long time. Imo a general strike is a better response. Shut down all business until the market crashes. Stop reading the news and the spins and the takes and just talk to people.

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I fully agree with you. 2 caveats.

          For the last 15 years, that I can recall, every year it was reported that more people who are or lean left have been buying the bulk of weapons. The left isnt toothless and honestly, most of the fucks who drove around in Trump trains, bullying on the freeway and what not, would shit their pants if fire were returned their way. Like all bullies, theyre real tough until they meet someone who is, then they’re a bunch of chicken shits. Case in point; Uvalde

          And it pains me to think it but I do; America’s “silent majority”, those too afraid to lose what they have to speak out, won’t budge until we see a REAL loss.

          Take this, entirely plausible scenario.

          Trump wins the election, not because people want him, but because the status quo (which is all Democrats can ever offer - they aren’t a party of leaders; they’re a party of middle managers) is destroying us all, and/or because our support for Israel, as they become the newest genocidal, eternal victim/pariah. Genocidal Joe is a baaaaaad moniker. Trump comes in, 2025 starts getting implemented. To distract, in the name of national security/health war is declared on the cartels, without discussing it with Mexico first and the bombing campaign begins as troops are built up in Cali/Arizona/NM/Texas. Soldiers push out off of America soil. Skirmishes are ran across the border and back again. Keep in mind - any military action inside the states is illegal. Legally they would have to establish a beachhead to invade; but that defeats the softer point of the whole venture, which is to normalize military use around civies. Protests erupt after our military, under direct orders to do, start channeling their inner Israeli and kill every human in sight. Mexican Americans, the majority along the border, grind the 2 largest state economies to a halt. Police are overwhelmed…next thing we know, Tucson doesn’t exist anymore, thousands of American are dead, at the hands of our military…

          That’s the threshold I think it’d take for any fucking Karen or Kevin to realize things have gone to far. I hope I’m wrong.

          I hope Shawn Fein can pull it together for 2028 like he’s mentioned. I’ll be standing in the roads right next to you brother.

          • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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            9 months ago

            It won’t be the US military. We will see multiple PMC hired to do the dirty work.

            They will stage at protests, “hear” gunfire, and engage the people protesting with a hail of bullets. All this time conservatives will cheer the deaths of liberals.

            They will stage at Democratic voting districts to keep the peace, and to do so only allow 10 people in line. Everyone else has to wait in their car. Polls close at 1700 due to unsubstantiated threats of violence.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        More importantly, how did it work for them IRL. I heard a lot of them lost their heads in France.

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      9 months ago

      The good news is that if Trump’s arguments hold, Biden can just send seal team 6 after his fat ass. The end of American democracy could almost be worth it.

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The time to riot was when the Steele Dossier was released. We’ve just contented ourselves with being fat and lazy at this point.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Why aren’t you ready and doing it?

      Pretty sure it’s the same answer as for pretty much everyone else.

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    9 months ago

    Hey now, why don’t we trust the court to fairly judge Trump.

    … Has Thomas accepted the 1 mil/year to fuck off already?

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      9 months ago

      If George Soros ever did anything to warrant all the hate he gets he should offer all 5 conservative judges 5mil/yr to retire immediately.

      Like, you can’t expect them to NOT take it. The rights been selling America out for 40 years now.

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    9 months ago

    I’m old enough to remember Dianne Feinstein waving Kavanaugh through his Senate confirmation hearing, just four years after McConnell had brick-walled Garland.

    Its crazy how bad Senate Democrats are on judiciary appointments. They bring boxing gloves to a gun fight every damned time.

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      9 months ago

      Most people in the country are just as craven, they just believe this doesn’t support their selfish directives so they’re obligated to bitch and moan about it. They won’t do shit though, watch.

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    9 months ago

    Lawrence Odonnel’s comments at the 5th minute of this video is a very interesting point. It kinda puts a blanket on all of the reason for the video but it is a important point. What the SC will hear is very defined and Trump already lost what he wanted the SC to hear.

    • 4grams@awful.systems
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      9 months ago

      Doesn’t really matter though. No one thinks the court will allow immunity. What turnip has been after is delay, and the court just signaled that they have his back. Adding almost 3 more months of delay (the 2+ weeks while waiting for them to accept the case and the almost 2 months before even hearing arguments, and that’s ignoring the time it will take to render a decision). So, the “best” possible outcome is still a benefit to him, and it only gets better for him from there.

      The fix is in.

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        Right. This is not a difficult question. OK, so the Supremes want to put their stamp on the fact that Presidents are not absolutely immune because it’s not something that’s come before them in the past. Fine.

        What they could have done is lifted the stay that’s stopping the trials from going forward. Then things move on in parallel and there’s no need to ramp things up again when the decision inevitably comes out as a no for Trump. Doing it this way means the obvious decision is still made, but Trump gets the delay he was looking for.

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        9 months ago

        Actually I think there’s a substantial chance that the court will allow immunity for only official acts. That’s really the only question before them, because the trial judge didn’t rule on whether or not these were official acts, only that there’s no immunity whatsoever.

        If they do it’ll get kicked back down to the district court where the judge will quite obviously say these were not official acts. Then that will be appealed. It’ll go nowhere but will waste time. Unless SCOTUS rules immediately after the oral arguments it’ll be pushed past the election for sure. It likely will anyway tbh.

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        9 months ago

        I always think Biden should take this asa sign the court is too small. 9 justices apparently isn’t enough to handle the caseload and the court needs to expand.

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    If the supreme court suddenly starts acting weird, that’s a declaration of intent. As in, they intend to help the man who put them there get his job back.

    Because law and the mafia are two sides of the same coin, and it’s the person holding the coin who puts the spin on it.

    Impetuous people will hear that and take it as license to do anything; actual grownups will recognize that makes the law more precious, not less. The supreme court is now split down that line. “Yes, but I just gotta do this thing” is why there aren’t supposed to be strings attached to Supreme Court justices; they’re supposed to be found first, and invalidate the candidate.

    All it took was an immoral president and now poof, the whole institution is functionally just gone, and here we are, chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out what to do about it. cept it’s hard to think once your head’s been cut off. maybe building our legal system as a layer cake with no access to the top levels for normal humans was the sort of shitty thing we weren’t supposed to do, flying in the face of all those principles it was “built on” and whatnot.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Remember this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/03/14/heres-what-we-know-about-trumps-tax-returns/99192032/

        Months, practically years, she strung her audience along on nothing burger after nothing salad, followed up with a nice unsatisfying nothing milkshake. How long did that go on for? Like 2 years?

        Her show is built to do exactly what it did here, to generate a headline that gets clicks. Outside of that, its vapid with nothing even resembling a material criticism of the state. Its a joke of a show and her viewership are as uninformed as Tucker Carlsons viewership.

        Shes an entertainer, not a journalist.

        • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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          Okay, you didn’t like that one thing she did and used a lot of words to express that and your judgement of this person appears to be absolute and final. Edgy. How does that relate to the topic at hand? Are there any nothing dishes you need to complain about here?

    • Shaggy1050@lemmy.world
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      Not sure why you’re being downvoted. I feel like her and Bill Maher are the left’s version of Tucker Carlson. Sure they’re not AS egregious as Tucker and the Fox wackos but they come off so pompous and smug.

      My dad and I loved the original Daily Show with Jon Stewart and when Jon left (I’m so happy he’s back now), I tried some other shows and my dad suggested Maddow. I felt like I was watching Fox News at points. I couldn’t make it through an episode.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        Not sure why you’re being downvoted.

        Just liberals who think they are leftists. They don’t actually know where they stand. The are Democrats before and always before they have any political principals. I’m not a Democrat or a liberal, so the downvotes just come with the territory. I caucus with Democrats. I’ve put in thousands of hours to get Democrats elected to state and local offices. But I am not a Democrat, and I would never run as one.

        And to be fair, its a fairly low effort comment that might be worthy of downvoting regardless of its sentiment. But Rachel Maddow truly is a clown, and her audience (if they’ve stuck with her) are clowns along with her. She jerked off Democrats for literally years in some kind of perennial Trump ‘gotcha’ moment that never manifested. I’m not going to kink-shame edging like this, but at a certain point, either put up or shut up Rachel.

        My central thesis right now is that white liberalism is the biggest political problem in the US right now. Yes, we have transitioned from burgeoning fascism to running fascism, but this would not be possible with out white liberalism (the political philosophy that underpins Maddow, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Clintons, the Obama presidency etc…). They are opponents of progress and because of this gave space to the legitimate criticism that Democrats are detached from the material conditions people live with, that they are elitist and don’t care about their voters, and that they just want to shame you into voting they way they want you do. This offered a cavernous void that the modern fascist movement has been able to fill.

        Half-a-loaf policies that have been the hallmark of Democratic leadership, where you either get 1/4 loaf and sometime negative loaf polices, while people quality of life and ability to do well in this society collapse, this approach to politics is why when people hear a fascist critique of the extant state, it lands with them. Because they aren’t doing better. In failing to govern effectively, in failing to go after full throated universal policies, the political philosophy of white liberalism opened the doors and set the table for fascism to have a seat. They aren’t resisting the problem, the are the problem. We wouldn’t be desperately trying to resist a fascist turn in this country if not for the previous 4 decades of white liberalism being the dominant political philosophy of the Democratic party.

  • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Why are we waiting for the supreme court on any of this when Biden controls all the guys with guns??

    If he’s actually committed to any of this he should just send them in and throw the robes out, and fill it up with people who aren’t demons.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      So you’re saying that Biden should stop SCOTUS shielding Trump from the consequences of trying to make the US a dictatorship by checks notes turning the US into a dictatorship.🤦

      • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        good luck in November lol

        edit: Democracy is when corporations own all candidates and the electoral college designed by slaveowners almost 300 years ago decides all presidential elections.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          I’m not saying that the US system from the 1700s works in 2024. I’m saying that your suggestion would make it even worse than it already is.

          • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            The current situation is that the Democrats are completely unreachable on the issue of “stop arming a genocide”, but then somehow this is a bridge too far

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Yeah, turning the US into a military dictatorship wouldn’t do anything to stop them from continuing to supply the genocide and I really don’t see how you’d ever think so…

              • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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                I’ve been told by numerous Democrats that I should be voting for them despite their complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people, because of all the things they’re getting done. They could literally get anything they want done to protect abortion and LGBT people and they choose not to, while the genocide continues anyways.

                • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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                  You’ve been told that the GOP will accelerate and increase the suffering of the Palestinian people. This remains to be true. If you’re voting only on that issue the Democratic Party is the best choice for preventing more death and destruction in Gaza. If you have an argument for how the GOP will improve the situation in Gaza I’m all ears, but I’m pretty certain you don’t.

                  Biden and a good chunk of the Democrats are wrong on how we are handling the crisis in Gaza. They are also our best shot at helping the Palestinian people (electorally). Both things can be true simultaneously.

      • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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        Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

        Yeah, yeah, sorry, I’ve just seen this comment copy\pasted so much its hard to take out seriously… Are you real? Say potato! Say potato, viking_hippie

    • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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      No, your right in this case. I think it would be unwise to just let the fascists win. You beat fascists by kicking their teeth in.

    • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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      Not guns. Biden can appoint 10 new judges and then have them rule that their appointment was lawful. Why should a country of hundreds of millions have only 9 people at the head of a whole branch of government, anyway?

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      That would probably collapse the US

      I fully support it, but Democrats want to keep this shithole from falling apart.

      • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        By their own inaction on internal social issues coupled with unlimited support for proxy wars it’s going to happen anyways, might as well get in some W’s for the rest of us before it all goes down in flames.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          I think they’re old enough that they want to delay the inevitable until they’re dead and gone. They don’t really care about the rest of us, just themselves.

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
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            Welcome to politics!

            Politics = kick the can as far as possible down the road until it becomes the next persons problem. They then follow the tradition.

            Why go against tradition?! You’re ruining our can kicking heritage!

          • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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            Hard agree, it’s vexing getting shamed for voting of all things when these people have actual power.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Tut-tutting, finger-wagging, and gotcha takes is all that passes for punishment in today’s world of emphatically corrupted politics.

      Don’t take away the one thing we got left man …