www.propublica.org/article/jd-v... I persist in my view that J.D. Vance is a conscious Machiavellian & that, when he says stuff like this, he is relishing the equivocation aspect of it. He literally believes that Alex Jones message - but is well aware that it describes his side not the other side.
Like what does this even say? Who is going to be deprived of the vote? The whole thing reads like an attempt to legally enforce, somehow, Trump's story that 2020 was stolen by classifying content moderation as election interference?
Obviously it's sure to get slapped with an adult warning. I can't believe the guy didn't look at his own design and say: we could re-design the bodice to look like the scale of justice so that one scale is cup-holding each breast. Ah, the opportunities we leave on the table in pursuit of art.
But on we go. I like the painting - and it's so busy in the this-is-that department. And the hats! Time caresses the chin of truth - as one does. If you ever need to teach allegory, and you don't mind justice's state of perma-nip-slip, this painting has it all!
If this is right, doesn't it follow it's a bad decision. If knowing whether it's a good decision depends on who wins the election, isn't it bad? The idea that the court should be in that business is very 'activist'. And the notion that you should tack into the election wind once - for the ages?
Goldsmith lets this decision off the hook on the grounds that it's a tough issue. But it seems like we can easily say both that it's a tough issue and a terrible decision. That defeating Trump is the job of the voters, not the courts, is no reason to do reckless favours for Trump, from the bench.
Is it clear the dissent exaggerates? If the decision makes the President de facto king but not de jure, is it such hyperbole to say he's a king? If it acts like a king, because realistically it can't be prosecuted - like a king - isn't it sort of a king?
This amounts to: the court made a tough policy call. But isn't it screwy to combine that with Gorsuch's aspiration to formulate a 'rule for the ages' - and the patent unclarity of what actually came out: the 'rule' for separating the three buckets - core official, other official, private?
First, I could be snarky about awkwardness of 'violate the ... conduct' but that's a symptom of the genuine unclarity of the target. Isn't it at least controversial that you could prosecute the President for, say, openly selling pardons for cash?
Also, one of the key elements of the John Roberts arc, like the Sam Stein arc, is that - although he is smart and a capable 'house wins' casino manager - he has to do that job while dealing with fallout from a whole rogues gallery of idiots, hotheads and chaos agents. It gets to be too much.
My "Casino" 3-3-3 theory of the court. Roberts (Kav + Barrett) is Sam and Alito (Thomas + Gorsuch) is Nicky. Sam to Nicky: 'This place is a license to print laws and the Dems can't touch us, and you risk that for what, drawing this heat?' Sam is a manager, a politician - but things get out of hand.
My "Casino" 3-3-3 theory of the court. Roberts (Kav + Barrett) is Sam and Alito (Thomas + Gorsuch) is Nicky. Sam to Nicky: 'This place is a license to print laws and the Dems can't touch us, and you risk that for what, drawing this heat?' Sam is a manager, a politician - but things get out of hand.
A lot of conservatives blame William of Ockham, like he was some supervillain who toppled civilisation. But they ignore one of the crucial bits of evidence for this thesis. He was named 'Doctor Invincible'.
(Timeline needs a cleanser.)
The wages of nutty dissent is evaporation of presumption that you aren't a nut, even when you try to hold it together for the length of a majority decision that doesn't openly channel NewsMax. And increased suspicion that Roberts' job these days is mostly just trying to run the casino quietly.
While we await debate, the conservative dissents here seem conspicuously off-the-wall, sheer paranoid punditry in lieu of legal reasoning. There is just no way plaintiffs have standing - or a shred of a case, even if they had standing, which they obviously don't. www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/u...
If you want to talk 3-3-3 court, how about conservative, liberal and NewsMax Justices? The dissenters are concurring with a NewsMax chyron. Imagine if the SC decided what 'the Deep State' is allowed to do - the proper scope and limits of 'the Deep State's' power - to remedy purported injury.
Bonus 726 skeet. It's pretty cool old stuff like this is true. Like, there used to be all these old people and places. But times change, history moves on.
OK, I hit 726. I was going to just dig up something historic. Like, something happened that year I'm sure. But I think I'll just lament that we used to be a country, a proper country, when it came to graphics to go with Presidential elections.
"'Did he grow six fingers or only five?' Well to tell you the truth in all this AI I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a finger gun, the most powerful finger in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I seem likely?" Well do I, punk?"
