• Flying Squid
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    192 days ago

    Why does this need to be determined? He wasn’t. He just wasn’t. Nothing he is being charged with is constitutional, which is the point.

    • Snot Flickerman
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      2 days ago

      Devil’s Advocate: It’s been needing to be determined since fucking Nixon left office, and our entire government has been waffling about it for 70 years, because it’s a question they don’t actually want answered. It’s only convenient to them now as a reason to give Trump a legal time-out so he can make it to the election without more indictments.

      The District Court in question has already defined official versus unofficial acts, which is part of why the SC released this so late on fucking purpose. Because even though the DC is ready to go with their findings, they’ll have to wait until October to kick it back up the chain to the Supreme Court when Trump inevitably appeals.

      • Flying Squid
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        82 days ago

        It won’t be answered if Trump gets in. I guess that’s the hope.

        • Snot Flickerman
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          2 days ago

          That’s the plan, yes. I think it goes a little farther than “hope” with these guys. They think they can manifest reality.

          We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.

          -Karl Rove

          • Flying Squid
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            52 days ago

            They see 1984 as a manual without recognizing the warnings in Animal Farm.

            • @pdxfed
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              32 days ago

              They don’t mind being the pigs, their only driver is to jot be the other animals who suffered with someone else in power.

            • Snot Flickerman
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              2 days ago

              In some ways, you can almost see why trying to “erase” bad ideas is intoxicating, since humans seem endlessly drawn to them.

              It’s like in tech circles, the joke goes that some Sci-Fi writer creates a horrible invention and includes a warning “DO NOT BUILD THE TORMENT NEXUS” and that warning, repeatedly, goes ignored. People are like “but we could make good profit from the Torment Nexus!”

              AI is a good example. “If we don’t make the terrible AI, someone else will, so we have to make the Torment Nexus, errr, I mean AI.”

              But trying to stop all these bad ideas is just Fahrenheit 451 with extra steps.

              • prole
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                12 days ago

                AI is a good example. “If we don’t make the terrible AI, someone else will, so we have to make the Torment Nexus, errr, I mean AI.”

                That mode of thought is a byproduct of capitalism.

                • Snot Flickerman
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                  2 days ago

                  I think the Soviets and the space race with the USA would prove that the “We have to build it faster, first!” isn’t just a capitalist thing.

                  Capitalism incentivizes it, absolutely. To be clear, I’m not making some “it’s human nature” argument, culture plays a huge role. Capitalist culture influences it greatly, but I think humans “racing” to achieve something before another does is outside the scope of just capitalism.

    • @dhork
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      112 days ago

      Some of the evidence that Jack Smith has put together involve some form of Trump’s official capacity. for instance, the Times notes that one of the points of the prosecution was that Trump tried to get Jeffrey Clark installed as acting AG in the days before Jan 6, presumably because he would go along with the coup. One of the findings of the Court is that appointments like that are within the President’s direct duties, and can’t be used as evidence against him, even if it can be proven that the appointment was made to directly piss on the Constitution Trump swore to protect.

      The Times also notes that Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence is similarly protected now.

      • Flying Squid
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        72 days ago

        The Times also notes that Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence is similarly protected now.

        How can that be constitutional?

        • @dhork
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          82 days ago

          Because presiding over the counting of the votes is one of the very few duties the Constitution allocates to the VP, so is covered under this new doctrine. He has the absolute right to conduct that how he sees fit, without regard to whether he is upholding his oath to the Constitution or not, and any conversations he had with the President are part of that duty, and similarly protected. If it turns out he is not upholding that oath, the only remedy is impeachment. (And finding 67 Senators to agree to convict.)

          Absolute power, just as the Founders intended.

          • Flying Squid
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            52 days ago

            Which, I guess, includes blackmailing the VP if necessary. To protect the president from blackmail.

    • @FireTower
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      22 days ago

      That’s just due process of law. The lower court can’t just wax seal issues of constitutionality with out looking at them. Doing so would be a fantastic grounds for appeal.

      • Flying Squid
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        42 days ago

        They already looked at them before he appealed to SCOTUS. And SCOTUS didn’t rule that they were wrong as far as I can tell.

      • Flying Squid
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        52 days ago

        It already was determined by a court. Now they’re sending it back to that court to re-determine it.