The Bible posted:

So... is there just no hope then? We're just at the mercy of a court in which the justices are at best unqualified and at worst publicly compromised? I know there are processes to remove justices, but that's as likely to happen now as the constitutional amendments being discussed earlier.

Craig K posted:

this one's fun because it all began with an undergrad attempting to prove his professor wrong about a grade on a term paper:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Revival_of_interest

it worked out; the grade was officially changed to an A+ in 2017 lol

quote:

Watson used $6,000 of his own money to sponsor his nationwide effort

predicto posted:

As someone who works in an appellate court, the idea of a court with 19 judges (or 27 or whatever) terrifies me. It's hard enough to discuss and work out complicated legal problems with 7 or 9 justices. Imagine a split decision with a plurality of 13 justices, 7 concurrences in which 16 justices agree in some form, 11 dissents, blah blah blah. And then the lower courts have to implement the things.

Xander77 posted:

Sorry if this is a joke I'm not getting, but you understand that (in a real country) a Supreme Court doesn't have to discuss every issue with a every judge in attendance? That's the point of having more judges beyond the political bias issue.

Nitrousoxide posted:

Hate to break up the multi-page long derail about the Supreme Court but here's some on-topic news regarding Trump and his crimes.mp3.

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1664002608615366659?s=46&t=iiCw8lzdvvJzhMaCXpw-_Q

AvesPKS posted:

But if the judges have even an inkling of how their colleagues would potentially vote on a particular issue, and they can see a case coming up in which they could swing the vote a particular way...what would disincentivize them from weighing in on that case, because they knew they could change the outcome of the vote by doing so?

Can you foresee a situation where Justice Coney Barrett (or any of them really) doesn't decide to consider an abortion case, for instance?

cr0y posted:

Didn't dotard also tweet classified satellite photos of something Iran missile related?

predicto posted:

Exactly. Or are we suggesting a setup where Chief Justice Roberts get to choose the panel for each case?

Ok Alito, Barrett, and Thomas, you get the abortion case. Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, you get the case about whether federal courts have diversity jurisdiction over slip and fall cases on tugboats in federally owned canals. Let’s get to work.

a.lo posted:

how are conservatives dealing with the first day of pride month

a.lo posted:

how are conservatives dealing with the first day of pride month

mdemone posted:

yeah it was a site we drone-bombed and then he tweeted a picture that was quite obviously either a) taken from an elevation of 500 feet over Iranian airspace, or b) from a *seriously* powerful surveillance satellite

SubG posted:

The specific satellite used was identified within hours of Trump tweeting the photo. It was USA-224 a KH-11, one of several kinds of keyhole satellite. Basically the time of day and relative position of the satellite were estimated from the photo itself, and then that was compared to the ground track of known satellites.

The orbits of a lot of classified satellites and similar objects are very well known simply because they can be visually observed from the ground, so this isn't even a particularly complicated problem. Like most astronomy apps let you point your phone camera at a light in the sky and it'll identify what satellite, rocket debris, or whatever it is, and they'll have up-to-date tracking info on the keyhole satellites (they're loving bright).

But yeah, that one photo Trump just decided to tweet out contains the majority of the open-source information about the imaging capabilities of the keyholes currently in the sky.

The Bible posted:

So... is there just no hope then? We're just at the mercy of a court in which the justices are at best unqualified and at worst publicly compromised? I know there are processes to remove justices, but that's as likely to happen now as the constitutional amendments being discussed earlier.

bird food bathtub posted:

There is a very detailed process for declassification of information that has steps for things exactly like that photo. This process is what Trump is theoretically in trouble for ignoring.

Murgos posted:

The constitution says that the justices, "Serve upon good behavior" and for some reason everyone assumes this is some expansive protection that immunizes a justice from consequences that affect their appointment from anything short of a felony because WE JUST CAN'T KNOW WHAT GOOD BEHAVIOR MEANS OH WELL.

The way I see it is actually the opposite. It makes a justices behavior a constitutional oversight issue and thus open to regulation and review. Congress must be the body to set what 'good behavior' means and how to interpret it, when it gets reviewed, who reviews it and what criteria to use and how to punish for not obeying it and absolutely not the justices themselves.

This is how every other limiting statement gets interpreted so why should this be different?

The judiciary is a separate branch of government and oversight is a constitutional requirement.

Murgos posted:

The constitution says that the justices, "Serve upon good behavior" and for some reason everyone assumes this is some expansive protection that immunizes a justice from consequences that affect their appointment from anything short of a felony because WE JUST CAN'T KNOW WHAT GOOD BEHAVIOR MEANS OH WELL.

The way I see it is actually the opposite. It makes a justices behavior a constitutional oversight issue and thus open to regulation and review. Congress must be the body to set what 'good behavior' means and how to interpret it, when it gets reviewed, who reviews it and what criteria to use and how to punish for not obeying it and absolutely not the justices themselves.

This is how every other limiting statement gets interpreted so why should this be different?

The judiciary is a separate branch of government and oversight is a constitutional requirement.

quote:

Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme.

In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators.

Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Department of Justice being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.

The state’s RICO statute is among the most expansive in the nation, allowing prosecutors to build racketeering cases around violations of both state and federal laws — and even activities in other states. If Willis does allege a multistate racketeering scheme with Trump at its center, the case could test the bounds of the controversial law and make history in the process. The statute calls for penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

“Georgia’s RICO statute is basically two specified criminal acts that have to be part of a pattern of behavior done with the same intent or to achieve a common result or that have distinguishing characteristics,” said John Malcolm, a former Atlanta-based federal prosecutor who is now a constitutional scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That’s it. It’s very broad. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to charge a former president, but that also doesn’t mean she can’t do it or won’t do it.”

quote:

Among Willis’s latest areas of scrutiny is the Trump campaign’s expenditure of more than $1 million on two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred in the 2020 election, the two individuals said. The Post first reported earlier this year that the work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, and the campaign never released the findings because the firms, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, disputed many of Trump’s theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election.

In recent days, Willis’s office has asked both firms for information — not only about Georgia, but about other states as well. Trump contested the 2020 election result in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin... <snipping everyone involved no commenting>

It is unclear if Willis will seek indictments of people for alleged actions that occurred outside of Georgia, such as those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. RICO experts say it’s unlikely she will do so. But, these experts said, the law allows Willis to build a sweeping narrative of an alleged pattern of behavior to overturn the 2020 election, with Georgia as just one piece. Evidence and actions from outside the state, such as Trump’s statements from Washington that inspired some of the rioters and parallel efforts to overturn other states’ results, could be presented as additional evidence that helps establish that pattern.

“The Georgia statute is broadly written” to allow the inclusion of violations of federal law as well as some other states’ laws, said Morgan Cloud, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta and expert on the state’s RICO law. “For example, acts to obstruct justice committed in Arizona might be relevant if the goal of the enterprise, of the racketeering activity, was to overturn the 2020 presidential election nationally, as well as in Georgia.”

Cloud added that prosecutors in Georgia must prove only that two racketeering crimes occurred under the state RICO statute, but other facts could be used to explain the breadth of an alleged scheme...

Several legal experts said they expect Willis to home in on possible false statements by Trump and his allies to government officials — one of the crimes that can be prosecuted under Georgia’s RICO statute.... <snip other crimes prosecuted under GA's RICO act>

In the Trump case, Willis has said she is focused on the phone calls Trump made to multiple Georgia officials seeking to reverse his defeat, his campaign’s efforts to persuade the Georgia legislature to declare Trump the winner, the gathering of Trump’s electors to cast electoral college votes for Trump after Joe Biden had been declared the winner in the state and his campaign’s potential involvement in an unauthorized breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County, Ga.

Main Paineframe posted:

Congress is the body that sets and interprets good behavior for the judges, and does have the power to punish justices for disobeying it. Congress does have all these oversight powers you're describing.

This is why I keep hammering on the point that the actual problem here is that Congress is barely functional. They have the power to bring the judges in line, but there's no chance of them exercising it when they can barely even manage the basic essential tasks needed to keep the country running.

Raldikuk posted:

This already exists, Congress can impeach and remove any article 3 judge including a supreme court justice. Good luck getting the 67 senators needed to remove one though.

mdemone posted:

CNN is now saying that the Trump lawyers did not find that classified Iran document. Whether that's because somebody else has it, or whether it's simply gone, remains to be seen.

gregday posted:

He probably sold it.

But there’s also a decent chance he was making poo poo up.

mdemone posted:

CNN is now saying that the Trump lawyers did not find that classified Iran document. Whether that's because somebody else has it, or whether it's simply gone, remains to be seen.

Randalor posted:

Was he actually trying to dispose of documents down the toilet or was that a joke?

gregday posted:

He probably sold it.

But there’s also a decent chance he was making poo poo up.

Randalor posted:

Was he actually trying to dispose of documents down the toilet or was that a joke?

Murgos posted:

I hope 20 years from now there is a “Trump bad” area in the Smithsonian museum where they put his half chewed/flushed documents on display next to like a 50 foot high wall inscribed with the 30,000 some odd documented lies he told while president and just go all in on what a poo poo show he is. Like just pop the balloon on his mythology and stop it from becoming another lost cause trope by utterly humiliating him.

Murgos posted:

There were reports while he was president that people would occasionally have to go pull wads of paper out of the toilet to piece back together an official document.

I hope 20 years from now there is a “Trump bad” area in the Smithsonian museum where they put his half chewed/flushed documents on display next to like a 50 foot high wall inscribed with the 30,000 some odd documented lies he told while president and just go all in on what a poo poo show he is. Like just pop the balloon on his mythology and stop it from becoming another lost cause trope by utterly humiliating him.

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

What is the point in leaking increasingly egregious findings versus bringing them out in the trial?

Murgos posted:

These lib ducks

Randalor posted:

Was he actually trying to dispose of documents down the toilet or was that a joke?

unl33t posted:

Failed Imagineer posted:

Exactly where those names belong

Failed Imagineer posted:

Exactly where those names belong