Live audio of the US Supreme Court: oral arguments to decide if Trump is eligible to run for president
Live audio of the US Supreme Court: oral arguments to decide if Trump is eligible to run for president
Hm. So I'm guessing they are going to say that disqualification can only happen at the federal level by a law defined by Congress. They don't seem too concerned about an insurrectionist becoming president, not surprisingly.
That's certainly a strange new precedent. I hope Congress gets to work quickly writing legislation for all the other amendments before a president realizes there aren't laws spelling out how freedom of speech is defined or how to enforce it, etc. etc.
No matter what we might wish were the case, some amendments can be further defined by law. So this isn't a new precedent by any stretch.
Amendment III comes right out and says law can define the details.
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
So does XIII, section 2
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And XV, section 2
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And, most apropos, XIV Section 5.
Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
So there it is right there.
Of course constitutional law is complicated. I don't know what I don't know. There are other solid arguments for and against, no doubt. But "unprecedented" isn't one of them, it seems.
Well, yeah, he's on team Naz...er Republican and can keep the tax breaks flowing to the top.
It should be a more fundamental question than that. The first issue with regard to any statutory authority regarding Section 3 must address whether the section itself is self executing.
Trump's lawyer made sure to argue that. But the text is clearly self executing. Congress can act like a pardon board to restore eligibility. It does not get powers to determine it in the first place. The intention was clearly that would be candidates with a bar would go hat in hand to Congress before campaigning.
In fact this just reminded me that any SCOTUS decision on this is another massive electoral over reach. They are again usurping Congress' power. Trump should be having friendly politicians advance a bill there to get the bar removed.
Cool, then let's put Ariana Greenblatt on the ballot and make them make a law on how to disqualify children.
Mostly because it's not SCOTUS' job to make laws ... they're simply there to interpret what Congress has passed. Which is pretty much how high courts operate everywhere, including Canada, the UK, etc
As a Canadian playing Devil's advocate, if he's blocked from running, you may have blood on the streets and a full on armed insurrection, which may be what's needed so those willing to overturn democracy in support of Trump, get stomped. But yeah, people might die no? Anyways it seems like a lose lose situation
I'd prefer a peaceful outcome, but there's a level of brain rot you just can't fix. I had almost daily political discussions with a coworker who was far right and listened to fox News every day and I genuinely saw progress with his critical thinking skills. But then he retired and went off the deep end and got banned from Facebook for his rants about the EVIL LIBERALS.
They won't go out en masse. A few might try something but that's already happening.
Is it worth listening to the conservative majority kiss Trump's ass?
Trump's lawyer had to be repeatedly saved by the conservative justices. That was funny. Other than that it was pretty infuriating.
Oh God. They cut to a live reaction of Shit Head himself. What a fucking word salad extraordinaire.
Rambling nonsense about World War 3, Iraq is Iran, Iran was poor now rich, HezBOLlah (that sounds how it should be typed when Fuck Face says it) is strong now and was poor, Biden can't keep up with Putin and Chi, and we are being laughed at.
Just gross, man. Dude is a fucking mess.
SCotUS is about to throw out the 14th Amendment as written & stick a thumb in the eye of the men that wrote it.
The conservative argument boiled down to trump didn't do it.
If he did do it then the president isn't accountable to the Constitution.
And if the President is accountable then a single state can't disqualify him. (Even though they routinely do so for other job requirements.)
If states can disqualify him then they can't do it until he wins the election because Congress could maybe, in an alternate universe, vote by 3/4 to remove his bar to office.
So according to conservatives we have to let a traitor win the election and then have the moral fortitude to DQ him and re-run the election. Because that's not nightmare fuel that will instantly cause a civil war at all.
They also ran a parallel argument saying nobody can do anything until Congress passes a law about an enforcement regime for the amendment. A requirement not in place for any other Constitutional bar to the office and with no text in the 14th requiring it.
Why the fuck are we bending over backwards for this humanoid?
The US Supreme Court has some tough choices to make. On one hand you have a piece of the constitution that, at least to this layperson, would seem to clearly disqualify Trump - but absent any clarifying law from Congress it's really hard to figure out how to implement it. Do you let States do it? What if a Republican state official says Biden is an insurrectionist? How would Biden challenge that? What court would hear that challenge? If it's the state supreme courts, then what if one court disqualifies him and another doesn't? Do you allow for some states to disqualify candidates and others not, or does the Supreme Court have to take up these cases each election year? What's the threshold for insurrection? Should it require a criminal conviction? What if Trump were charged with insurrection and later acquitted - can he now run again?
Maybe they might punt it off to Congress and say that it's Congress' responsibility when counting electoral college votes to decide if a candidate is qualified or not, but now you've just given cover to Republicans to reject presidential election results they don't like if they happen to win enough seats in Congress.
Tl;dr - from my perspective they have to either ignore the constitution and invite the chaos of another possible Trump presidency, or acknowledge the constitution and invite (additional) chaos into the election system. If Congress functioned maybe a decent law could be written but fat chance of that.
Biden would go to court to challenge it. Just like Trump did. That's the answer. Not enforcing laws for fear of bad faith actors is appeasement and ends badly everytime.
Also states DQ people all the time. Not old enough, Not a citizen, etc...
but absent any clarifying law from Congress it's really hard to figure out how to implement it.
OK yeah but that's literally the supreme court's JOB.
But if they rule it as self executing (which it almost certainly is), we can expect a clusterfuck stateside for the foreseeable future from Republicans. Though, that may be a feature for them, not a bug.
Best case scenario, I guess, would be the SC deciding eligibility is a federal thing not a state thing, AND that trump is ineligible to run.
Though that'd make him a martyr... But allowing him to run after a coup attempt is a terrible precident as well...
I don't think we're winning no matter how this turns out, boys.
Allowing him to run after a failed coup attempt would invite others to attempt another coup. Good points.
It absolutely is self-executing. From the text of the 14th Amendment:
But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
So it follows that Trump would be disqualified absent any action from Congress, since they can only vote to lift such a restriction, not on whether or not to impose it.
This person pays attention folks.
The US Supreme Court has some tough choices to make.
😂
You actually really think they give a shit?
I think Kagan summed up the concerns pretty well. I will also say that this probably suggests SCOTUS won't hear the immunity case though. If the 14A can only be enforced by the federal courts or congress then the president can't be immune to the federal courts as a matter of definition. I also won't be shocked if she writes the opinion, either.
For those who missed it (or didn't watch) the AP has a pretty concise page with what happened.
https://apnews.com/live/trump-supreme-court-arguments-updates
Good summary. Apparently even the Democratic judges are skeptical of upholding the Colorado Supreme Court decision.
When faced with murky or complex legal issues surrounding elections, I think the court pretty much always tries to come down on the side of letting voters decide. And I'm not sure that's a bad philosophy. This has been my expectation from day one, though I've tried to keep an optimistic view and challenge myself to look for reasons they might rule differently.
I'm not surprised in the least, but I'm glad we at least the challenge was made. I'm not sure if any country can withstand self-sabotage by a nearly 50% party. If we can't defeat Trump at the ballot it doesn't really matter whether we can keep him off on a legal issue because there are still all those folks he has won over. Authority in our nation comes from the people, and the people decide. I just wish so many of us weren't so fucking stupid and hateful.
States should keep him of the ballot regardless of what they say. If the SC won’t hold an insurrectionist accountable, the states should.
Looks like a sad little troll got their alt account banned from Lemmy World and they aren’t handling it well.
Tf is wrong with you?
Is it over already? That Livestream just streamed for 10s before ending.
It was going for 2hrs 19 mins. Started at 10am EST
But as much as I hate Trump and think he should not be put on the ballot and should definitely be in prison, I do see how removing someone from the ballot could be a bad thing. In my opinion all it would do is set a precedent for removing people from the ballot just because they don't like them. Is that why states are trying to remove Trump? Probably not. But if this is allowed I can clearly see other states trying to remove Biden from the ballot (If they haven't tried already). And eventually it would just be another way for politicians to exercise this dick measuring contest they love so much by just removing each other from the ballot any reason they can think of. They already do absolutely batshit crazy things like gerrymandering to get votes. This would just turn into another version of voter suppression.
If someone does an insurrection they don’t get to be on the ballot. That’s pretty simple.
Did Biden do an insurrection? No? He gets to be on the ballot. It’s not complicated logic.
But let's be honest here. Republicans are doing a speed run to impeach Biden so they can do the whole "SeE?! He WaS iMpEaChEd ToO!"
While it's simple for us normal people to understand that one crime doesn't pale in comparison to the other "crime", for the alt right, they aren't going for fair. They are going for power by any means necessary.
Yes and I agree with you. Trump does not belong on the ballot. But you and I know for a fact that this is just going to give people an excuse to try and remove people from the ballot out of revenge. Trump and his followers attempted an insurrection so we all know how far they would go. You really think they wouldn't just try and remove opponents from the ballot because they want to?
"Biden staged an insurrection by taking away Texas' power to police their own border!"
FFS, did you think this thing had to be logical? Look at how, having their man lose twice, the GOP is trying to impeach Biden. For nothing. They got nothing. Yet they're trying.
Let me argue the conservative side a moment. And again, it doesn't have to be logical.
"If Trump's clearly guilty of insurrection, why has no court found him guilty in 3 years since 01/06? All I'm seeing is 3 years of wasted time trying to prosecute an innocent man, a political target. Show me where exactly he called for insurrection."
I could go on all night, too exhausting thinking that way.
Hang Trump out to dry, let the chips fall where they may, but this is Pandora's Box. Either way it rolls out, America will never be the same.
Y'all may find this PBS documentary interesting (below). Trump is in more trouble than you may think.
Commoners like us may find it obvious that Trump's guilty as sin, but here they lay out how the January 6th Commission methodically nailed his ass to the wall. Jack Smith's prosecution relies on the evidence brought out. The findings here are the blueprint for his case. I didn't intend to watch it all at once, got sucked in for the duration.
Truly outstanding reporting. They presented the case honestly and without bias. Even though experienced lawyers like Ken White presented legitimate questions/hesitations, in the end those same experts basically said Trump is screwed.
Acting like people are trying to remove trump from the ballot “just because they don’t like them” is ridiculous. If anything, this would set a precedent that trying to interrupt election proceedings to declare yourself the winner is actually perfectly fine.