Don Zeko

@donzeko.bsky.social

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Public defender in the South, politics obsessive, nerd stuff enthusiast. Also a new dad, although I'm trying to respect the baby's privacy.

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Don Zeko

co-sign but i will add: i don't know the best path but i do know the worst path, and that's replacing him with anyone other than kamala, via any process whatsoever.

I have no idea the best path re Biden but I do know a solid week straight of “Biden Old” and “Rich Dems Worried” above-the-fold stories are *obscene* in the face of SCOTUS using the Constitution to wipe their asses purely in the service of reinstating a felon rapist as president. Crazy-making shit.

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The Tories could still win if King Charles has courage.

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Don Zeko

The NYT editorial everyone’s talking about today

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Don Zeko

Today we celebrate the day the Founders declared independence by publishing a list of things King George had done that, apparently, were cuckish insufficiently authoritarian.

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Don Zeko

this is perhaps the funniest possible “Dems are already doing something like this” www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip...

kamala takes the stage as the presumptive nominee to the organ riff from “not like us.” the crowd goes wild when she says “our opponent, the certified lover boy? certified pedophile”

Vice President Kamala Harris Drops Kendrick Lamar ‘Not Like Us’ Reference During 2024 BET Awards: ‘They Not Like Us’www.billboard.com Kamala Harris dropped a reference to Kendrick Lamar's Drake diss track 'Not Like Us' during Sunday night's (June 30) 2024 BET Awards.

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Don Zeko

Joe Biden has been an excellent president, and I highly doubt he lost his marbles in the last few months

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Don Zeko

Why I Don't Vote (OK, I Do Vote, but I Would Like to Discourage You, NY Times Reader, For Doing So For Some Reason) Via @bubbaprog.ilovecitr.us

Man, if it turns out that the right winger telling NY Times readers that they should follow his example and not vote did in fact vote in the last two elections, the Times should add this to the piece. Better than a retraction, since it illustrates a willful hypocrisy.

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Don Zeko

just watched 74 people speaking at least a dozen different languages become american citizens in a ceremony at monticello, where the speakers were themselves children of immigrants. inspiring stuff and a vivid illustration of what reactionaries want to snuff out

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Don Zeko

i really am going to be logged off for the holiday but i would like to drop off a parting thought: publishing a monarchist anti-voting take on the fourth of july is the strongest possible indication of someone's core, true values

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Don Zeko

very much the words of a man who has never once worried, not for a moment, that he would be outside the law

More anti-democratic thoughts from 2018 the NYT allowed this writer to exclude from his current piece. Delivered with an air of detached irony, as if he miiight be joking or exaggerating. But is he?

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Don Zeko

Constitution: People involved in insurrections should not be President. Roberts court:...hmm, no, I don't see it. Constitution:.... Roberts court: but the president should have immunity for crimes

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Don Zeko

"Lawsuits are slow, they are complicated, they are often decided on arbitrary technicalities or total nonsense, and being so costly they are hideously biased toward the rich and well-connected." prospect.org/justice/amer...

American Government-by-Lawsuit Is a Disasterprospect.org Judicial review is not just anti-democratic, it strangles ordinary governance.

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Don Zeko

LOTS OF PEOPLE still need further proof that Trump is a monster. We should never shut up about it!

Yes, seen it... but we can do more than one thing at a time, and we really need no further proof that Trump's a monster. Kind of like discovering Hitler beat Eva Braun after discovering Auschwitz.

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Don Zeko

The Missouri AG's office also butted into the prosecution of Patricia and Mark McCloskey, filling an amicus brief arguing for dismissal the day after charges were filed. An in-group who the law protects but does not bind and an out-group who the law binds but does not protect.

Just a jaw-dropper from the state whose attorney general is currently trying to execute an innocent man. innocenceproject.org/missouri-cir...

I found myself thinking about the Bush Era and what conservatives said at the time about torture a lot while reading the Roberts opinion. I think "fearless" presidents willing to break the law to "keep us safe" from terrorism is what Roberts had in mind.

under the opinion in trump v. united states there was no need for john yoo to come up with an elaborate justification for torture. george w. bush could have ordered an interrogator to crush the testicles of a child, no questions asked.

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Don Zeko

yep, it’s the obvious next move

There is also every reason to think that this court will expand Trump v. U.S in his second term to extend immunity to those doing his bidding. I.e., “Our holding in Trump v. U.S. demands that government officials be able to enact the will of the executive without fear of criminal proceedings.”

So just to spell something out, the inevitable result of a president actually using the power SCOTUS just gave him is either dictatorship, civil war, or both. Democrats don't want either and therefore can't use that power the way that Trump will if reelected.

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Don Zeko

Very weird that they aren't giving the presumption of immunity to Biden's executive branch. This kind of tit-for-tat prosecution is the very thing Roberts was concerned about! Didn't they read his opinion?

I've been thinking about this post from the Claremont Institute, a Trumpist think tank, ever since the SCOTUS immunity ruling. Wonder what "unpleasant things" the Trumpists have in mind. open.substack.com/pub/joelmmat...

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Don Zeko

Forget that: Qualified immunity, baby "A member of the executive branch has a right to presume that the President's orders - given after the President has presumably gotten the benefit of able counsel - are lawful."

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Don Zeko

Well, the Missouri Attorney General is also opposing a local prosecutor's motion to vacate a death sentence based on DNA evidence that excludes the defendant. So he's that kind of lawyer. apnews.com/article/miss...

I'm sorry, what? How did any lawyer sign their name to this lawsuit? Missouri has filed against New York under SOCTUS's original jurisdiction to stay Trump's sentencing. ago.mo.gov/wp-content/u...

ago.mo.gov

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Don Zeko

1/ At some point every year in teaching Con Law--not just recently but for as long as I've been doing it--some student will play out the thread of "and then what if's" to the point where I say, "Well, it depends on whom the military would support in that situation."

Moreover, if the president then fails to set you free, you’d be entitled to another court order that says he’s a very naughty boy but the Founders didn’t want us to ruffle a hair on his naughty little head.

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Don Zeko

constitutional lawyers use your fucking brain challenge www.politico.com/news/2024/07...

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Don Zeko

Immunity doesn't mean that the courts will actually treat the action as valid. Just that Biden wouldn't be prosecuted. A court can turn around and say no, the student debt remains owing It can't unshoot a protester

If this is what's waiting for us on the other side of January, why SHOULDN'T Biden use immunity to cancel student debt?

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Don Zeko

these people do not intend to ever lose power again

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Don Zeko

It's truly impossible to talk about right-wing political organizing without sounding like you're out of touch with reality, but this is the reality we're facing. It's maddening

This is the group behind Moms for Liberty, the state house takeovers, coordinating the Proud Boys, and most of the disinformation about the border and about immigrants and asylum-seekers. They're also involved with the anti-Palestinian disinfo campaigns nationally and are connected to John Hagee.

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Don Zeko

He's right. They're stealing the country from us and ending democracy. "Bloodless if the left allows it to be" is a threat to kill anyone who fights back

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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Don Zeko

Reply to

kilgore trout

one candidate is old, the other is slightly younger and a raging fascist psychopath, in this bangor diner, voters don’t know who to choose

In the spirit of full poasting accountability, I am currently in Kansas visiting my wife's family with her and the toddler. Our daughter spiked a fever on the first night in the Airbnb and we're here until Sunday. Please bear this in mind while evaluating my level of alarm and doom.