SCOTUS: No longer content with stacking, they're now dealing from the bottom of the deck

[twa]

15 minutes ago, gbear said:

  I worry about what will be even harder to change with another conservative on the court, Citizens United. 

 

Your best bet for Citizens United is changing law.....pretty sure the court said so as well.

[Kilmer17]

There’s nothing the Dems can do here except lose.  They should save their energy for when Trump and the GOP announce the reconstituted Judicial Procedures Reform Bill. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

9 minutes ago, twa said:

 

Your best bet for Citizens United is changing law.....pretty sure the court said so as well.

 

God, you're dumb. It's remarkable.

 

Buckley v. Valeo holds that money equals speech.

 

Citizens United prohibited limiting the amount of money an entity can spend on political speech.

 

Where in your close reading of Citizens United did you find a recommendation for changing the law?

[LD0506]

[NoCalMike]

Is there way to argue unequal protection under the law if people are donating different amounts to politicians.  Can there not be a historical precedence shown that the more you donate the more likely the politicians will provide friendly legislation to your cause?

 

If money equals speech then each citizen is definitely not represented by the same amount of speech. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

55 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

Is there way to argue unequal protection under the law if people are donating different amounts to politicians.  Can there not be a historical precedence shown that the more you donate the more likely the politicians will provide friendly legislation to your cause?

 

If money equals speech then each citizen is definitely not represented by the same amount of speech. 

 

nope

[AsburySkinsFan]

1 hour ago, NoCalMike said:

Is there way to argue unequal protection under the law if people are donating different amounts to politicians.  Can there not be a historical precedence shown that the more you donate the more likely the politicians will provide friendly legislation to your cause?

 

If money equals speech then each citizen is definitely not represented by the same amount of speech. 

That's not what money equalling free speech means. The equivalent of what you're asking for is for SCOTUS to rule saying that Candidate X must receive the same amount of talking by people as Candidate Y. Think of dollars as words. Now, I'll grant, there are some with a LOT more words to use than others, but if money equals speech then to say one cannot receive more money than someone else is the same as saying that people can't talk in favor of one candidate over another.

[The Evil Genius]

I do wonder if Trump could survive a no confidence vote had we had that option. That and the campaign times/dollars are what the UK does exceptionally better than us when it comes to politics.

 

 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

2 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

I do wonder if Trump could survive a no confidence vote had we had that option. That and the campaign times/dollars are what the UK does exceptionally better than us when it comes to politics.

 

 

 

We need to accept the fact that the Republicans are NEVER going to abandon him. NEVER.

 

I've never seen anything like this in American politics.

[LD0506]

[tshile]

@LD0506

 

I'm not going to lie, I originally thought it was weird. Then the report came out.

 

But... he's 81 years old. It's the end of a term. It's not really all that weird. He might be healthy, but he's old and been on the court a long time. It's perfect timing for him to retire.

 

In fact, I'd be curious if the people working the report pushed up the timeline for releasing the report once they found out he was retiring (as opposed to him retiring when he found out a report was coming)

 

And honestly, I could see the reporters doing that and it not being for nefarious reasons. 

Edited June 29, 2018 by tshile

[The Evil Genius]

I'm always surprised that those connections stay buried for so long.

 

How was this not known and reported on? The optics (ethically speaking) are horrid.

[AsburySkinsFan]

THIS is one of the plethora of reasons I absolutely dispise McConnell.

[DogofWar1]

20 minutes ago, LD0506 said:

Fishy Kennedy

Oh its super fishy.

 

But there isn't really an endgame that changes the outcome, unless we want to get into the weeds about Kennedy retroactively having a conflict on CU.

 

Even if Kennedy suddenly got kicked for inappropriate ties to Deutsche Bank, which thus far its important to note hasn't been proven, rather we only have some ties that could have been inappropriate, what's the remedy going forward?

 

A new SCOTUS member, nominated by Trump.  So the same as now.

 

Only thing that changes is perhaps his decisions have to be re-evaluated based on newly discovered conflicts.

 

Problem with that is 1) there is no method to retroactively shift cases to 4-4, and 2) even if there were such a method, all it means is Trump's new guy can make it 5-4 again.

 

 

Rather, what would be best at this stage is to let the cloud hang if and until there are 5 or more on the bench opposing CU and certain aspects of BvV.  THEN you break out the "Kennedy was conflicted so we don't consider CU as appropriate precedent and therefore overturn it without needing to explicitly overturn settled law."

 

But that is a looooooong shot that probably is 30 years in the making from here (It'd probably be faster to try and get demographic shifts to pass a Constitutional amendment)  UNLESS some of the current rightwing 5 get impeached.

 

Which is an unthinkable option right now but becomes sorta thinkable if Trump and one "yes" Senator is found to have committee illegal and impeachable acts with regards to 2016.

 

But even then the whole thing goes off into a long crazy process that really only could happen after 2020.

[visionary]

Some news:

 

 

Any guesses as to who made the list?

(not that I expect a lot of difference between them)

For people happy about this situation, is there any particular justice you are hoping for?

Edited June 29, 2018 by visionary

[twa]

3 hours ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

God, you're dumb. It's remarkable.

 

Buckley v. Valeo holds that money equals speech.

 

Citizens United prohibited limiting the amount of money an entity can spend on political speech.

 

Where in your close reading of Citizens United did you find a recommendation for changing the law?

 

Where it addressed the quid pro quo issue in the majority opinion, which both it and cooperation with pacs can be regulated with new laws despite money equaling speech.

 

Recommendation was a overstatement, but they noted those are issues that can be regulated by new law

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, The Evil Genius said:

I'm always surprised that those connections stay buried for so long.

 

How was this not known and reported on? The optics (ethically speaking) are horrid.

 

 

Trump draining the swamp...

[Momma There Goes That Man]

Mostly conservative lol

[visionary]

 

[DogofWar1]

Aw crap, then me and my GMU degree are out.

 

Where is Predicto from?  Maybe he can still sneak on the shortlist.

[tshile]

10 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

Where is Predicto from? 

 

 

i bet he wears one of those Harvard sweat shirt on the weekends

 

[visionary]

 

[tshile]

That’s cute heitkamp 

 

heres what will actually happen:

They will float a name or two of judges that will cause the left to flip out 

then they’ll actually nominate a right judge that has a less obvious background

theyll claim this is a moderate compromise and get enough centrist dems and gop to vote to pass through easily

 

and they’ll have enough cover to last them through an election or two before a ruling comes down that makes them look stupid, because it’ll take that long for middle America to figure it out 

[bearrock]

I'm honestly not convinced that enough moderates and liberals actually care.  And by that, I mean care enough to flip a vote or make someone go vote where they would not have before.  If that was the case, I would imagine we'd be looking at a different POTUS right now.