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Main Paineframe posted:Society at large didn't react to Bush v Gore as if it were an obvious violation of the law and of the Constitution. Plenty of people regarded it as partisan and politically motivated, but this is literally the first time I've ever heard even the slightest suggestion that it was illegal or that the judges could have been prosecuted for it. I mean as I said before, government officials and even judges get prosecuted all the time. Bribery, public corruption, fraud, racketeering, and official misconduct are all standard crimes and there's several examples of the Republican members of the court being exposed to them. The financial and political relationships between many of the judges and their party leadership are extremely sketchy - with many of them benefiting both directly and indirectly from their governmental positions - and in the eyes of a less friendly court it is likely that their favor-making arrangements, paid organizing, and improper activity would be seen extremely critically. In regards to Bush v. Gore specifically, you yourself have indicated that you believe that if a government official were to violate the constitution and interfere with an election, that would be authoritarian - well the Supreme Court violated century-old statutes in their rush to overturn the election, and they had absolutely no authority to do so. That's official misconduct right there, even before investigating the problematic relationship between members of the court and their various paid "dinner parties" "strategy sessions" and "speaking engagements". You could put together a RICO case pretty easily - the only thing shielding them is judicial immunity, and that got stripped away as soon as the court did away with precedent (not that there has been any precedent for justices being tried for a coup attempt). Believing that government officials should obey the law and face criminal penalties where appropriate isn't wild or abnormal, it's mainstream American opinion.
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Jul 4, 2022 22:07
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The case basically comes down to "judicial immunity, still a thing?" If it's not, either because a court decides it doesn't apply to these individuals in this circumstance, or because they decide to waive judicial immunity, then it's a ball game. The Republicans have relied very heavily on the idea that they are above the law and aren't subject to ethics rules. They are very vulnerable. Maybe they won't be prosecuted criminally because of the politics, but there's no reason to assume it's impossible. Judges and election clerks have been arrested and convicted for a lot less.
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Jul 4, 2022 23:11
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It seems like your objection here is that it's a counterfactual. "If it hasn't happened yet, it couldn't have happened and it will never happen." But that just doesn't carry much water in a world where justice and the constitution is basically whatever the people in power say it is. It's absurd to act as if the blatant corruptive act of overturning an election in the interests of your own political party, who funds you and who you've sworn a personal allegiance to, can't ever be viewed as a crime. If you asked the average American how to describe a government worker accepting $50,000 in annual "gifts" from a group that they then provide with favors, they'd call it bribery and they'd be right. Prosecuting corrupt officials is a normal part of a functioning democracy. The DOJ and an independent prosecutor are of course allowed to investigate suspect judges, and federal courts are fully empowered to enjoin and censure the actions of a corrupt supreme court. I'd suggest reviewing how limited the constitutional guidelines actually are for this sort of thing. The Roberts Court doesn't act out of a deeply-seated constitutional authority when they throw out centuries of precedent or seize unconstitutional powers like interfering with a state election - they recognize that their willingness to challenge unstated norms creates its own power. It's precisely why the GOP has been running rings around their decorum-poisoned opponents. Alito would never worry about stuff like this - he'd carve out an "exemption" to whatever principle stood in his way - whether it was judicial immunity or whatever else - and say that due to the theory of originalism, the constitution has never authorized it in this circumstance. McConnell would not hesitate for a moment to investigate a Democratic justice that he thought was vulnerable to a charge of corruption. And Trump would shop his cases around to every judge in the country until he found one that would be willing to issue an injunction to uphold a critical election recount. Kaal fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 03:32
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Potato Salad posted:
Absolutely. And the reason I bring all this stuff up isn't even so much that I think that contemporary Democrats should fight a 20-year old rearguard action, but rather that they need to stop acting as if Lawful Stupid was a virtue. It's not liberal, and it's not even centrist - it's a breed of faith-based legalism that few Americans respect or even care about. Liberals aren't seen as carrying the cross of law and order when they use unspoken guidelines and weasel words to defend Republican activity that everyone agrees destabilizes democracy, the judiciary, and society at large. They're seen as weak and unwilling to challenge the status quo even when most of the country hates it. Let the Republicans defend themselves.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:55
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skeleton warrior posted:What even would the corruption be in Bush v. Gore? "You were appointed by the same party as the person you ruled in favor of, therefore you must be corrupt"? "This court ruling is more specious than normal, so jail time for all of you"? The Republicans on the court get outright paid tens of thousands of dollars each year in "gifts" by their patrons, and profit in a wide variety of other ways as well. The Bush v. Gore decision was demonstrably based on false pretenses, it violated existing laws governing election interference and court authority, and because they're terrible lawyers who were on a time crunch they managed to admit as much in their ruling. It's not difficult to put together a criminal case over their behavior. Investigating them would doubtlessly unveil further crimes, both because they believe they are above the law and because they'd likely react with fury if they were challenged and would end up obstructing justice. The only thing needed would be a court willing to actually challenge a corrupt justice. For what it's worth, Ezra Klein has been popping out bi-weekly podcasts worth checking out. The last couple have been focused on criticizing the diminishment of liberal legal beliefs over the last 40 years. In particular he and several of the very mainstream scholars he brings on are highly critical of the liberal embrace of judicial supremacy and the ceding of the entire field of constitutional law to right-wing lawyers. The Supreme Court is not the only source of constitutional authority, and they are not somehow above the law. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-larry-kramer.html
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Jul 7, 2022 03:05
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That indicates a lack of vision on your part more than anything else. There's nothing particularly leftist about holding government workers accountable to the law. It's a very moderate concept that the vast majority of Americans are perfectly comfortable with, even if it makes some of the lawyers squirm at the indecorum. The leftist approach isn't to have the DOJ investigate corrupt deal-making and then try them in federal court. The leftist approach is to form a people's court and start prosecuting everyone who enabled it. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 7, 2022 03:55
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It remains totally laughable to look at how loose with the law actual courts are, from the Supreme Court down all the way through to the lowliest criminal and civil ones, and then see how Democrats are still plagued with hidebound folks who believe that everything is strictly regimented and there's no room for judgement or interpretation. They're perpetually mystified when Republicans Lucy the ball time and again, as if somehow their inadequate reading of regulation was to blame for not anticipating the latest rewriting of law and order. "Surely they're not allowed to do that!" And yet every SCOTUS opinion is filled with make-believe nonsense that is then treated as coherent and Constitutional, and real-world defendents routinely discover how much latitude judges actually have.
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Jul 7, 2022 04:16
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"Laws apply to oligarchs? In my America?" Meanwhile, today's news has been filled with how Trump ordered IRS investigations into Comey and McCabe, and we still have folks bending over backwards to insist that somehow this is all super legal and might have all been a big coincidence.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 13:51
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Bribery, public corruption, fraud, racketeering, election interference, and official misconduct are all standard crimes, whether folks want to recognize that or not. Ethics rules apply to every government employee, even judges. Investigating and prosecuting them for criminal behavior is not some wild authoritarian act. Politicians, judges, and other government employees get investigated and prosecuted routinely for these types of abuses. Courts have ample powers of injunction that they use all the time - tying up the actions of a corrupt court is very possible. Every part of government is required to abide by the Constitution and statutory law as they best understand it. I know these ideas challenge some folks' preconceptions about bureaucratic legalism and judicial supremacy, but they need to wake up.
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Jul 7, 2022 16:07
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skeleton warrior posted:If only we had been fascists back in 2000 and jailed our political enemies regardless of laws or the will of the people, then surely democracy would be safe today Wild takes like this one are good "through the looking glass" examples of what American legal discourse would look like if Trump's Insurrection had been successful. There would have been an initial anger, followed by a rush to justify everything that happened as the uncomfortable but unavoidable result of lawful democracy. "It would have been wrong and authoritarian to order police and troops into the streets to defy the will of the people and break up the peaceful rally supporting the vice-president as he exercised his constitutional duty upholding President Trump's rights to avoid irreparable harm that might cause a needless and unjustified cloud on his legitimacy, as acknowledged by the Supreme Court in their emergency decision, which some court critics have argued is partisan in nature. Congress has vowed to investigate the matter fully, and has formed a sub-committee to pursue the facts of the matter throughout the next year." Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 16:23
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The weird insistance that Bush somehow won the Florida election, despite 20 years of proof that he did not, remains very weird. Media organizations looked into the election thoroughly, and came to the consensus decision that Gore in fact won it, and if the Florida Supreme Court-ordered full recount had been allowed to continue they would have come to that conclusion. The comfortable unwillingness to reexamine historical facts that defy established ideas is a stubborn defect in the American psyche. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida#Florida_Ballot_Project_recounts
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Jul 7, 2022 16:37
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skeleton warrior posted:You responded to my link with a link that literally repeats what I said and contradicts your point. I would encourage you to read more about the issue. There is absolutely no question that if the recount had continued, Gore would have won. This has been proven exhaustively - regardless of the standards used or which types of votes were ultimately considered, Gore would have won. The Florida Supreme Court was already moving forward on the issue and the full recount was actively occuring. The only way Republicans could win at that point was to cancel the recount, which is what they did. quote:Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over the validity of all the ballots in question had been consistently resolved and any uniform standard applied, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes (with, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes being in agreement). The standards that were chosen for the NORC study ranged from a "most restrictive" standard (accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent) to a "most inclusive" standard (applies a uniform standard of "dimple or better" on punch marks and "all affirmative marks" on optical scan ballots).[4]
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Jul 7, 2022 21:08
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skeleton warrior posted:Again, only under a standard that the courts would have to rule for a statewide recount with a uniform standard, which your own quote describes as only "a tangible possibility", because no one in the Gore campaign or the state government was asking for it. So, to wit: the Florida state government would have, in response to the Gore campaign request for a limited recount, responded by demanding a full, state-wide recount; and then that recount would have had to have been conducted in a timely enough manner to report results by the deadline. None of that would have happened except in fantasies, fantasies akin to "and then Clinton would have sent in the FBI and the Republican SC judges would all get thrown in jail for life and everyone would think that was fair and correct and not the end of the republic". You seem to have a poor grasp of how the Florida election system worked in 2000, because you keep conflating different things that were going on at different times. The election campaigns were expected to ask for specific recounts for different counties, and did so until the Florida courts started escalating the scale of the recounts as it became clear the election issues were systemic. You seem confused about the basic fact that the court already ordered a statewide recount that was underway and was deliberating over the specifics of how it would be interpreted. Fundamentally it seems like you just can't handle the reality that Gore won the election so the Republicans overturned it, and you're throwing ideas around in the hopes that something will justify that. You've been getting more and more erratic to interact with, and I'm not sure how useful it is to continue. It's a little wild to interact with a rabid Bush fan in 2022, but there you go. quote:On December 8, the Florida justices, by a 4–3 vote, rejected the selective use of manual recounts in just four counties and ordered immediate manual recounts of all ballots in the state where no vote for president had been machine-recorded, also known as undervotes. And also in case anyone still thinks that this was just some sort of sour grapes argument, there has been extensive research into why exactly polling support for Gore seemed to evaporate on election day. Basically Republicans systematically disenfranchised Black people in Florida, while Democrats did their typical ineffectual bullshit and let it happen. The vote was rigged by the Republican Secretary of State as much as possible, and then they shut down the election as soon as they could. There was nothing free or fair about it, and everyone agrees that it stole a presidency, and yet we still have folks complaining that even investigating those responsible would amount to a fascist coup that would be the "end of the Republic". When progressive Democrats complain about centrists simply not being their allies, this is exactly what they're talking about. And while this stuff might seem like old news, it should be seen as a preview of what Republicans are planning for 2024, because it's going to be this sort of thing all over the country. quote:During the recount, controversy ensued with the discovery of various irregularities that had occurred in the voting process in several counties. Among these was the Palm Beach "butterfly ballot", which resulted in an unusually high number of votes for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. Conservatives claimed that the same ballot had been successfully used in the 1996 election;[16] in fact, it had never been used in a Palm Beach County election among rival candidates for office.[17]: 215–216 Also, before the election, the Secretary of State's office had expunged tens of thousands of citizens identified as felons from the Florida voting rolls, with African-Americans identified on some counties' lists at up to five times their share of the population. Democrats claimed that many of these were not felons and should have been eligible to vote under Florida law.[18] It was expected that had they been able to vote, most would have chosen the Democratic candidate.[19] Additionally, this Florida election produced many more "overvotes" than usual, especially in predominantly African-American precincts in Duval County (Jacksonville), where some 21,000 ballots had multiple markings, such as two or more choices for president. Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, the Duval County ballot spread choices for president over two non-facing pages.[20] At the same time that the Bush campaign was contesting hand recounts in Democratic counties, it accepted hand recounts in Republican counties that gained them 185 votes, including where Republican Party workers had been permitted to correct errors on thousands of applications for absentee ballots for Republicans.[21] (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Kaal fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jul 7, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2022 22:50
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quote:Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk. A nasty, small-minded little jerk seems like the perfect phrase. Clarence Thomas is a corrupt rear end in a top hat who acts against American interests, and his race really doesn’t have much to do with that. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Sep 25, 2023 |
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Sep 25, 2023 19:30
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The idea that these immoral oligarchs pick up $274,000+ per year to rule over America and still have the gall to complain about their poverty and get further handouts from their political patrons should be offensive to every patriotic American. Their corruption is so blatant that if they weren't in charge of the courts for life, they'd be jailed immediately.
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Dec 18, 2023 17:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Eh, they actually are underpaid relative to other attorneys at that level. If we only look at nominal salary and not, you know, all the grifting. High level attorneys need to deliver on things for their clients. They spend their entire career building up to that payout. Modern justices are plucked from relative obscurity, they are chosen for political reliability rather than any legal capability, and their work product is generally derided for their legal incoherence. They have much more in common with a member of congress ($174k per year) than a white-shoe lawyer.
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Dec 18, 2023 17:51
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Personally at least, I love the idea of a fair and just system of laws - I highly admire the history of thoughtful jurisprudence, of passionate and considered legal debate, and the principle of equality before the court. I really enjoyed my legal studies in undergrad, and researching the history of major cases, their historical precedents, and the way they impacted future judicial opinions. To have the Roberts Court consistently spit on all that, burn that legacy to the ground and replace it with a kangaroo court that issues naked edicts is deeply disgusting to me. The fact that so many of the Republican members are also patently corrupt is really only the cherry atop a broken and non-credible institution that should be dismantled and replaced. The group actively undermines the interests of American law and order, much as discriminatory police departments undermine public safety.
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Dec 18, 2023 21:23
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They're going to do the same thing they've been doing for decades at this point, "According to obvious and long-held American legal tradition, Republicans get what they want, and no take-backs. If anyone disagrees, they're free to come back to us in a few years for another ruling." And people will nod sagely as if there could have been no alternative.
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Feb 8, 2024 05:17
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smackfu posted:“Chief Justice Roberts noted that the challengers’ position would have empowered the former Confederate states to determine whether candidates were disqualified from holding federal office.“ Only if one forgets that initially those states were stripped of such oversight entirely, and then later bound by the Voting Rights Act until Roberts decided to slip their leash.
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Feb 8, 2024 19:11
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If the Republicans controlling the Supreme Court can pretend they’re just impartial observers calling balls and strikes, I don’t see why an actual watchdog group can’t do the same thing.
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Feb 12, 2024 20:47
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Caros posted:Oh the watchdog group can, I'm cool with that. But do we need to keep up the kayfabe on this dead internet forum? Or can we jsut call a spade a spade? I’m fine with a bit of generalizing but I think blaming “the Democrats” for something that this group is doing, with little context provided, seems like quite the stretch. They might be a bit more progressive than the ACLU, but there’s quite a bit of daylight between them and the DNC. It’s probably fair to call them a liberal group, but frankly a watchdog organization mostly going after corrupt Republicans is simply a reflection of how corrupt they are. An institution that tries to investigate both parties equally, in a world where the GOP is filled with crooks, is certainly neither moderate nor nonpartisan. Kaal fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 22:02
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The Federalist Society is a RICO case just waiting to be heard. The group charges members to be part of an influence-peddling gang that undermines confidence in the American judicial system. People who go along with the gang are bribed with cozy jobs and positions of power, while those who do not are threatened and blackballed. If they were in the field of construction contracts they’d already be in jail, but since they’re lawyers the judiciary prefers to look the other way.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 17:49
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FlamingLiberal posted:This is probably why they want to run the Supreme Court Oh agreed. Heck, the infamous McCarthy Hearings got going over a lot less than an open conspiracy to take over the American justice system. They protect each other, and their patrons, and the rest of the country puts up with it. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 19:47
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Main Paineframe posted:I'm not super familiar with RICO but I'm pretty sure there has to be actual crimes involved. Advocating for conservative policies and supporting lawyers who push for conservative rulings is not, generally speaking, a crime. Bribery is a crime, influence-peddling is a crime, conspiracy to defraud the public is a crime. I mean this sort of thing is always going to be considered normal politicking, right up until a prosecutor decides to take it on. That might never happen, but it doesn't change the reality of what the group is and was intended to do. It's a classic example of how Republicans play the game, while Democrats just act like marks. The GOP would never simply tolerate a judiciary that was controlled by Dems who all were card-carrying members of a secretive dues-paying organization that was openly dedicated to seizing public offices, controlling the nation's courts, and changing American laws in their favor. They'd have a special prosecutor hauling in all of them for congressional testimony, and would have propaganda pieces on every single case they were ever involved with. Fox already does this with "Obama Judges", and they're simply people who were ever appointed by a Democrat. They'd have an absolute field day with a documented gang like this. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 15, 2024 20:18
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Oral arguments promote the idea that the Supreme Court is composed of impartial judges who consult a variety of legal perspectives before reaching a considered opinion. However, while this concept is fundamental to the court’s societal sway, this idea flies in the face of a reality where Republicans backroom with their party powerbrokers and then issue decrees. Thomas enjoys spiting oral arguments because it demonstrates his role as an oligarch. It’s just a power trip, no different from a cop ignoring a driver while writing out a ticket.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Feb 29, 2024 |
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Feb 29, 2024 19:33
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If the Republicans on the SC didn’t like it, they’d simply call that sort of thing a bill of attainder. It would just depend on the political context. The legacy of the Robert’s Court has been that they can do whatever they want, for whatever reason, and it doesn’t have to be internally coherent.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:33
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If the Republicans wanted to create some sort of carefully-thought out legal test that would stand for decades, they would have.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:23
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Shooting Blanks posted:"Impeachment" is simply bringing charges - Trump was acquitted by the Senate as they didn't secure enough votes to convict. An acquittal implies a judgment was rendered. The Senate simply failed to convict - it doesn’t have the power to acquit.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:44
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MGDRAGOON posted:Wasn't a major part of the rationale for the failure to convict was that it wasn't congress' job to enforce the punishment, it was the courts? Since that rationale has been proven wrong by the SC, doesn't that make the failure to convict on those grounds make it a mistrial? It wasn’t a real trial to begin with. So the caveat there is that they could always redo the proceedings in the Senate. There’s no bounds on their conduct, and they have the sole power to try all impeachments.
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Mar 5, 2024 00:11
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Slaan posted:They have jurisdiction because the Constitution gave Congress the power to set SCOTUS' jurisdiction*. Congress gave them final appellate jurisdiction over all matters with federal questions. That includes suits over constitutional matters**. Jurisdiction isn't an issue here If you want to get really “Originalist”, the Constitution merely says that judicial power extends to a variety of cases, and vests that power in one supreme Court and those inferior courts that Congress may establish. There’s no rules saying that any particular court has a specific jurisdiction, nor governing which court should be considered supreme at any particular time. Congress could simply declare that the Supreme Court is the one in charge of all cases involving ambassadors, while the Circuit Courts have oversight over other matters. Or maybe there’s a new court called the Ultimate Court that is more supreme, and therefore there’s 13 open seats to fill. The jurisdictional definitions are so vague that they can easily be interpreted however you’d like. The Commerce Clause is the classic example of the court doing an end-run around their constitutional limitations. Breaking the Constitution over your knee is fairly simple if you’re willing to do the same sort of gaslighting as the judicial Republicans. At the end of the day we’re talking about an unelected, anti-democratic institution filled with life-long oligarchs that is appointed by a similarly ancient and undemocratic Senate, and whose impact for decades has only been to destabilize the rule of law and degrade the interests of the United States. The Roberts Court’s signature has been throwing out legal precedent, issuing momentary decrees, and daring the country to do anything about it. Congressional Republicans are calling for a second American Revolution, threatening to imprison all their enemies, and are challenging each other to act rather than to speak. This is largely enabled because they believe they have given themselves a stranglehold on the courts. How America decides to meet that threat will largely be up to their ability to imagine alternatives.
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Mar 5, 2024 21:52
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One of the normal coping strategies with gaslighting is hoping that some herculean and perfect effort will be enough to meet the undefined expectations and change things for the better. But the reality is that Lucy still pulls the football away. The Republicans have been killing off the 14th Amendment with a thousand cuts, and aren’t going to change their minds about that.
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Mar 6, 2024 13:40
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Evil Fluffy posted:They want to get our hopes up that Thomas is dying/dead. If a Supreme Court Justice can fulfill their "Good Behavior" requirement while completely asleep during courtroom discussions, they can do it while being dead.
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Apr 16, 2024 23:39
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