I was dubious about the whole 14th Amendment is going to save us thing to begin with and listening to today’s Supreme Court argument – which I highly recommend any time the court makes live audio coverage available – only served to back up my skepticism.
And one cannot give a thought to today’s proceedings without a shout out to good old Clarence Thomas and his delightful wife, Ginni who played an active part in planning and executing the insurrection, or whatever you wanna call it. Which all can agree was an attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power. Semantics aside the man who has been taking bribes from wealthy people with issues coming in front of the court, did not recuse himself, and was not pushed to do that by the other members. So that to me was the biggest take away from today and tells you exactly what we cannot expect from the court in terms of any form of real justice. That Thomas was allowed to shape his questioning in favor of Trump is all you need to know. There is no more respect for SCOTUS
Minimal respect at most for some of them, and some for any one of them who surprises us by issuing a well-reasoned and compassionate interpretation of issues before them - even Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have done that, but very rarely.
I don't think that includes Clarence T., ever, not even once - c'est incroyable!!!
I agree also.When Lucien talks about attorney Jason Murray who well argued the case in front of the SCOTUS saying he probably should" be on some future president's list for Solicitor General" , he is assuming that we will,in fact, HAVE future presidents because that is not the direction in which we are headed.
But in between 1776 and 2016-2024 there were great changes in who had access to exercising the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, maybe enough to quell some of your misgivings? The anti-slavery movements coalesced enough support to end chattel slavery in the South - albeit through a bloody Civil War - and other states, for example, then there were the battles over Reconstruction - including the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments - the defeats that saw the rise of an "American Apartheid" in the Jim Crow legal system suppressing black Americans, and all along, a continuing series of invasions and land thefts from Native Americans, as well as a bunch of broken treaties and the removal of many tribes to reservations.
Also the rise of the women's suffrage and equal rights movements and the labor movement, plus too much more to list. In any event it seems far too simplistic a perspective to leave all of that out, don't you agree?
After talking with two lawyer classmates ( both retired), I was not one bit surprised by the tenor of the questions and the clear sense that the Colorado decision will not stand. I was underwhelmed by Justice Jackson, sorry to say. For goodness sake—- I know the law is all about parsing and dicing words, but if the president isn’t an “officer” of the United States, pray tell who is? If the drafters of Amendment XIV had wanted to exclude the president under the rubric of “officer,” they would most assuredly have said so, in no uncertain terms.
The whole thing was depressing, but we should have expected this because in all reality Donald Trump has not been found in fact to be guilty by a jury of instigating an insurrection, which is why the ruling on his immunity case is far more important.
Once (if heaven allows it) he is found guilty of the charge, then someone would be able to take that verdict and say that Trump is NOT eligible for a spot on the ballot because it was finally decided by a jury once and for all.
Of course one can never re-litigate the same issue to the court, so it's all over on that matter, but somewhere along the line someone has to find the SOB guilty of everything.
Perhaps Judge Engoron will strip Trump of all his worldly possessions and money, which would go a long way to making him disappear from the ballot.
But depending on the most corrupt, cowardly, partisan court in recent memory is certainly not going to work.
We should stop depending on it for rule of law because it's no longer an arbiter of that, only rich people's law.
That means the rest of us can go jump into the lake and drown. They don't work for us. They work for their masters, the Federalist Society, which expects results from their puppets.
Courage doesn't count in this game. Only money does.
Section III of the 14th Amendment does say “engaged” in insurrection. It doesn’t state, “convicted” of insurrection. Perhaps the Supremes should re-read that Section.
Oh, they can read it and understand your point all right, the problem is the death threats if they bar Trump, for one thing. This is already headed into still more fascist / authoritarian encroachment on our standards for respecting the rule of law and even rationality itself, and the Supreme Court is not only not immune to that -I am betting the increase in security measures for the SCOTUS (kept as secret as possible, for a host of very good reasons) would stun most casual observers of our current political landscape.
Ok, TRUMP hasn't yet been found guilty of "inciting an insurrection," but under what legal theory does it follow that January 6, 2021 was not an "insurrection"?
Only one that is detached from reality, that's what. Legal definitions are not prior to common sense definitions based on thousands of years of comprehension, it's the reverse if anything, or a complex symbiosis, not one where common sense observations of politically charged riots in a national capital must definitively stand in abeyance of a legal adjudication that may or may not ever happen.
Given that SCOTUS has deliberately expanded the 2nd Amendment to allow the country to become awash in guns and given the fact that they have gutted the 15th Amendment, and given the fact that they have gutted Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, why would be surprised that they will find that Section 3 does not apply to Trump. One would be interested in forcing the Leo/McConnell right wing cabal to say if it would apply to a Democrat who had engaged in the exact same behavior.
Robert Reich got it right here: This was like oral surgery except he left out the part where the endodontist doesn't give you any lidocaine!
- I was absolutely floored by Justice Jackson uninformed question as to whether the President is covered by the 14th Amendment. Did she not read the amicus briefs by numerous historians as well as the Baude & Paulson law article?
- I was equally floored by Justice Kagan's concern about one state effecting others. I'm sorry, this is hardly the attitude I expect of the Supreme Court - the Constitution is the law of the Land and if a state adjudicates and abides by that law should the law be arbitrarily amended because that decision will affect other states? No - the Constitution is the Constitution and the 14th Amendment says what it says. It is the Law of the Land. The State of Colorado followed the law of the land. Woe be unto us should the Supreme Court overturn this decision!
- And finally was I sorely disappointed in Jason Murray. Afterward, I learned that although Murray clerked for Gorsuch and Kagan, this was his FIRST oral argument before the Court. This was a horrific error. He was ill-prepared to address many of the Court's questions and only once addressed specifically (but ineffectively) the historical question of whether the President is covered by the 14th Amendment. Numerous amicus brief's supported the fact that the President is covered by the 14th Amendment.
Looks like I'm going to need a lot of laughing gas (Nitrous Oxide) to make it through this election year!
I completely agree - my thinking was they were not going to override the Colorado ruling that Trump engaged in insurrection (since that was properly adjudicated pursuant to the laws of Colorado) but would say that he is not qualified to hold office unless Congress votes by 2/3 to remove the disability. The ruling would continue that since each state has different laws governing who can be on the ballot, each state would have the obligation to follow its own laws. In the end, if Trump wins 270 electoral votes delisted only being on the ballot of those states that don't have qualification requirements (how ridiculous is that???), he would become President-Elect but still unqualified unless Congress removes the disability. I'm not even sure, given the number of seats coming up in November whether either party could muster the 2/3rd vote to override disability. And if they don't, then Trump's VP would become the president. We are presently in the middle of a constitutional crisis.
So it seems that states' rights are only meant to go so far, no? Thanks to Mr. T. for listening to the whole magilla. I was only good for about an hour. Later in the day I became exercised about Hur doing a Comey.
I used to think the word "gratuitous" was a newspaper word, but apparently it's a legal one, too.
And now I am good and sick of Merrick Garland, who had to have seen Hur's report and signed off on it. There was stuff in there was extra legal and pretty much marked Hur as a Republican, if not a Trumper. Blech. 🤢
I just want to chime in on your comments about Hur and Garland. The cheap shots taken by Hur were just that - cheap shots. They had absolutely nothing to do with his assigned task, were merely his negative and personal opinions and had no place in that "report." And the fact that Garland allowed those snarky remarks to remain told me all I need to know about Garland. He should step aside.
A probable line of questioning one could expect from to paraphrase the adman Jerry Della Femina, "Those wonderful folks who brought you Citizens United."
I'm going to look on the bright side of this. If Donald Trump were to be removed via 14.3—as a religious reading of the amendment strongly suggests he should be—then that would leave Nikki Haley as the presumptive GOP candidate. With polls indicating that she'd do better against Joe Biden in the general election than would Trump, I'll take it as a positive development that he's still in the game, blatant insurrectionist though he may be.
Good point, I have been thinking the same thing. She spouts the same bullshit as the insipid clown, she thinks faster and is way more coherent, but if you strip it down to what she’s really saying, it’s the same old crap, pro Dobbs, defund SS, get rid of of Obama Care, the same for Medicare and Medicaid. Haley is in lock step with the maggots who are the “base”.
The justices from the very beginning had their minds made up, and now they just have to find the language to explain the logic of their decision. There was no way they were going to allow a single state to exclude Donald Trump from their ballot form. People are excluded all the time for many technical reasons; under age, etc., but I guess urging the vice president to void the electoral College votes and then inciting a mob to try to stop him by force is nor as serious infringement as a 12 year old trying to get on the ballot. It seems a positive resume and a character reference is only needed for a bank teller's job but not for president of United States.
If Donald Trump is elected president again and Joe claims the election was rigged and summons a crowd to fight like hell to right this wrong and instructs Kamala to void the Electoral College count he will have no problem getting on the r ed states ballot in the next election (age permitting :)
Regarding whether the president is an “officer” under the Constitution, John Bingham, principal author of the 14th Amendment, explicitly answered in the affirmative during debate on Section 3.
It's not that they don't know it-it's that they don't choose to acknowledge it, because they're not going to do anything about this case. "Keep moving, nothing to see here".
As others have said, they came to the bench with a result already in mind and were just looking for reasons to justify their pre-determined result. And then one came to take a nap or sober up, not sure why else the guy was there, unless it was to defend anything that may have come up relative to his best friend.
And one cannot give a thought to today’s proceedings without a shout out to good old Clarence Thomas and his delightful wife, Ginni who played an active part in planning and executing the insurrection, or whatever you wanna call it. Which all can agree was an attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power. Semantics aside the man who has been taking bribes from wealthy people with issues coming in front of the court, did not recuse himself, and was not pushed to do that by the other members. So that to me was the biggest take away from today and tells you exactly what we cannot expect from the court in terms of any form of real justice. That Thomas was allowed to shape his questioning in favor of Trump is all you need to know. There is no more respect for SCOTUS
I have no respect for SCOTUS. Thank you!
Minimal respect at most for some of them, and some for any one of them who surprises us by issuing a well-reasoned and compassionate interpretation of issues before them - even Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have done that, but very rarely.
I don't think that includes Clarence T., ever, not even once - c'est incroyable!!!
What the hell did our ancesters leave England for? To get away from the King and I believe religious freedom.
We do not need Trump to turn us into a monarchy with a dictator!
If we must live in a monarchy, I'd rather we rejoin the UK and have a constitutional monarch, not an unhinged autocrat.
So the American Revolution was fought to replace George III with, eventually, the House of Trump? Then it was a vast mistake.
I agree also.When Lucien talks about attorney Jason Murray who well argued the case in front of the SCOTUS saying he probably should" be on some future president's list for Solicitor General" , he is assuming that we will,in fact, HAVE future presidents because that is not the direction in which we are headed.
oy, he groaned, with a trace of disgust.
I agree.
But in between 1776 and 2016-2024 there were great changes in who had access to exercising the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" rights outlined in the Declaration of Independence, maybe enough to quell some of your misgivings? The anti-slavery movements coalesced enough support to end chattel slavery in the South - albeit through a bloody Civil War - and other states, for example, then there were the battles over Reconstruction - including the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments - the defeats that saw the rise of an "American Apartheid" in the Jim Crow legal system suppressing black Americans, and all along, a continuing series of invasions and land thefts from Native Americans, as well as a bunch of broken treaties and the removal of many tribes to reservations.
Also the rise of the women's suffrage and equal rights movements and the labor movement, plus too much more to list. In any event it seems far too simplistic a perspective to leave all of that out, don't you agree?
After talking with two lawyer classmates ( both retired), I was not one bit surprised by the tenor of the questions and the clear sense that the Colorado decision will not stand. I was underwhelmed by Justice Jackson, sorry to say. For goodness sake—- I know the law is all about parsing and dicing words, but if the president isn’t an “officer” of the United States, pray tell who is? If the drafters of Amendment XIV had wanted to exclude the president under the rubric of “officer,” they would most assuredly have said so, in no uncertain terms.
Yeah that struck me as disappointing as well, maybe she is still getting her bearings.
After Jackson's response, I turned off the hearing, beyond disappointed.
Thanks. But what a fucking porquería. SCOTUS would allow Jeff Davis to stand if the Devil hadn’t already claimed him.
Liked for "porqueria"!
The whole thing was depressing, but we should have expected this because in all reality Donald Trump has not been found in fact to be guilty by a jury of instigating an insurrection, which is why the ruling on his immunity case is far more important.
Once (if heaven allows it) he is found guilty of the charge, then someone would be able to take that verdict and say that Trump is NOT eligible for a spot on the ballot because it was finally decided by a jury once and for all.
Of course one can never re-litigate the same issue to the court, so it's all over on that matter, but somewhere along the line someone has to find the SOB guilty of everything.
Perhaps Judge Engoron will strip Trump of all his worldly possessions and money, which would go a long way to making him disappear from the ballot.
But depending on the most corrupt, cowardly, partisan court in recent memory is certainly not going to work.
We should stop depending on it for rule of law because it's no longer an arbiter of that, only rich people's law.
That means the rest of us can go jump into the lake and drown. They don't work for us. They work for their masters, the Federalist Society, which expects results from their puppets.
Courage doesn't count in this game. Only money does.
Section III of the 14th Amendment does say “engaged” in insurrection. It doesn’t state, “convicted” of insurrection. Perhaps the Supremes should re-read that Section.
Oh, they can read it and understand your point all right, the problem is the death threats if they bar Trump, for one thing. This is already headed into still more fascist / authoritarian encroachment on our standards for respecting the rule of law and even rationality itself, and the Supreme Court is not only not immune to that -I am betting the increase in security measures for the SCOTUS (kept as secret as possible, for a host of very good reasons) would stun most casual observers of our current political landscape.
This political polarization has created scary times for everyone.
The far right is perpetually alternating between fearful paranoia and various degrees of rage, it's nothing new for them!
Ok, TRUMP hasn't yet been found guilty of "inciting an insurrection," but under what legal theory does it follow that January 6, 2021 was not an "insurrection"?
Only one that is detached from reality, that's what. Legal definitions are not prior to common sense definitions based on thousands of years of comprehension, it's the reverse if anything, or a complex symbiosis, not one where common sense observations of politically charged riots in a national capital must definitively stand in abeyance of a legal adjudication that may or may not ever happen.
1984, only a few decades late.
Given that SCOTUS has deliberately expanded the 2nd Amendment to allow the country to become awash in guns and given the fact that they have gutted the 15th Amendment, and given the fact that they have gutted Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, why would be surprised that they will find that Section 3 does not apply to Trump. One would be interested in forcing the Leo/McConnell right wing cabal to say if it would apply to a Democrat who had engaged in the exact same behavior.
Robert Reich got it right here: This was like oral surgery except he left out the part where the endodontist doesn't give you any lidocaine!
- I was absolutely floored by Justice Jackson uninformed question as to whether the President is covered by the 14th Amendment. Did she not read the amicus briefs by numerous historians as well as the Baude & Paulson law article?
- I was equally floored by Justice Kagan's concern about one state effecting others. I'm sorry, this is hardly the attitude I expect of the Supreme Court - the Constitution is the law of the Land and if a state adjudicates and abides by that law should the law be arbitrarily amended because that decision will affect other states? No - the Constitution is the Constitution and the 14th Amendment says what it says. It is the Law of the Land. The State of Colorado followed the law of the land. Woe be unto us should the Supreme Court overturn this decision!
- And finally was I sorely disappointed in Jason Murray. Afterward, I learned that although Murray clerked for Gorsuch and Kagan, this was his FIRST oral argument before the Court. This was a horrific error. He was ill-prepared to address many of the Court's questions and only once addressed specifically (but ineffectively) the historical question of whether the President is covered by the 14th Amendment. Numerous amicus brief's supported the fact that the President is covered by the 14th Amendment.
Looks like I'm going to need a lot of laughing gas (Nitrous Oxide) to make it through this election year!
Since the states run their own elections, I don’t get why the justices have a problem with Colorado ruling that Trump is not qualified.
I completely agree - my thinking was they were not going to override the Colorado ruling that Trump engaged in insurrection (since that was properly adjudicated pursuant to the laws of Colorado) but would say that he is not qualified to hold office unless Congress votes by 2/3 to remove the disability. The ruling would continue that since each state has different laws governing who can be on the ballot, each state would have the obligation to follow its own laws. In the end, if Trump wins 270 electoral votes delisted only being on the ballot of those states that don't have qualification requirements (how ridiculous is that???), he would become President-Elect but still unqualified unless Congress removes the disability. I'm not even sure, given the number of seats coming up in November whether either party could muster the 2/3rd vote to override disability. And if they don't, then Trump's VP would become the president. We are presently in the middle of a constitutional crisis.
Article Two of the Constitution refers eight times to the “office” of the President. Logic dictates that one who occupies an office is an officer.
So it seems that states' rights are only meant to go so far, no? Thanks to Mr. T. for listening to the whole magilla. I was only good for about an hour. Later in the day I became exercised about Hur doing a Comey.
I used to think the word "gratuitous" was a newspaper word, but apparently it's a legal one, too.
And now I am good and sick of Merrick Garland, who had to have seen Hur's report and signed off on it. There was stuff in there was extra legal and pretty much marked Hur as a Republican, if not a Trumper. Blech. 🤢
I just want to chime in on your comments about Hur and Garland. The cheap shots taken by Hur were just that - cheap shots. They had absolutely nothing to do with his assigned task, were merely his negative and personal opinions and had no place in that "report." And the fact that Garland allowed those snarky remarks to remain told me all I need to know about Garland. He should step aside.
The way LT tells the story, the maze of issues I followed today almost makes sense --- like a talented translation from the original Russian.
Exactly!
A probable line of questioning one could expect from to paraphrase the adman Jerry Della Femina, "Those wonderful folks who brought you Citizens United."
Plus Ginni Thomas is the tenth Justice.
Ginni is the Queen of Diamonds
The Red Queen from "The Manchurian Candidate," that's for sure!
Thank you for this thoughtful analysis. I wish Jason Murry had consulted with more people and made a better case.
I'm going to look on the bright side of this. If Donald Trump were to be removed via 14.3—as a religious reading of the amendment strongly suggests he should be—then that would leave Nikki Haley as the presumptive GOP candidate. With polls indicating that she'd do better against Joe Biden in the general election than would Trump, I'll take it as a positive development that he's still in the game, blatant insurrectionist though he may be.
Good point, I have been thinking the same thing. She spouts the same bullshit as the insipid clown, she thinks faster and is way more coherent, but if you strip it down to what she’s really saying, it’s the same old crap, pro Dobbs, defund SS, get rid of of Obama Care, the same for Medicare and Medicaid. Haley is in lock step with the maggots who are the “base”.
Hear, hear! Let the two split the Republicans. And may the one who can’t defeat Biden, take the hot seat.
Yes, best be carefull what one wishes for.
The justices from the very beginning had their minds made up, and now they just have to find the language to explain the logic of their decision. There was no way they were going to allow a single state to exclude Donald Trump from their ballot form. People are excluded all the time for many technical reasons; under age, etc., but I guess urging the vice president to void the electoral College votes and then inciting a mob to try to stop him by force is nor as serious infringement as a 12 year old trying to get on the ballot. It seems a positive resume and a character reference is only needed for a bank teller's job but not for president of United States.
If Donald Trump is elected president again and Joe claims the election was rigged and summons a crowd to fight like hell to right this wrong and instructs Kamala to void the Electoral College count he will have no problem getting on the r ed states ballot in the next election (age permitting :)
The Supreme Court will have spoken
Regarding whether the president is an “officer” under the Constitution, John Bingham, principal author of the 14th Amendment, explicitly answered in the affirmative during debate on Section 3.
And why does someone who holds a position on the Supreme Court not know this?
It's not that they don't know it-it's that they don't choose to acknowledge it, because they're not going to do anything about this case. "Keep moving, nothing to see here".
As others have said, they came to the bench with a result already in mind and were just looking for reasons to justify their pre-determined result. And then one came to take a nap or sober up, not sure why else the guy was there, unless it was to defend anything that may have come up relative to his best friend.