From the Sotomayor dissent, which is joined by both Kagan and Jackson: Today's ruling "reshapes the institution of the Presidency" and "makes a mockery of the principle . . . that no man is above the law." The decision "gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent."
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Sotomayor does not use "respectfully" with "dissent" here or at the end of her dissent, which concludes: "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
The people who need to read this are either the psychopaths who implemented the strategy to get these conservative hacks on the court, or the grossly gullible base too illiterate to find let alone comprehend this dissent.
The court analyzed four categories of conduct contained in Trump's indictment: his discussions with Justice Department officials following the 2020 election, his alleged pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of Biden's election win, his alleged role in assembling fake pro-Trump electors and his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The court found Trump was absolutely immune for conversations with Justice Department officials but returned the case to lower courts to determine whether Trump has immunity for the other three categories.
The ruling marked the first time since the nation's 18th century founding that the Supreme Court has declared that former presidents may be shielded from criminal charges in any instance.
(3) Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial. Pp. 30–32
This is how fucked we are. Right here.
Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.
So nevermind all that evidence you have of them planning it out in the open. Inadmissible in trial!
Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.
Took 7 fucking months to kick this back to the lower court for a ruling we all kind of expected (can't really trust SCOTUS to do anything good). Exactly why Smith wanted this Streamlined in December.
"60% growth" seems large, but there are almost 85,000,000 people in Germany, so we're talking about growing from ~0.03% to ~0.05% of the population here.
You're saying this now but they're on course to leave the left in the dust and are likely to compete with greens in terms of members and votes by election sunday next year.
They already have a presence, and are shaping the politics of Germany indirectly. As our leading conservative party (and our socialdemocatric middle -left party to some extent) makes the same error as in US as trying to cater to those extremist views. Which is frightening as fuck, as more and more fascist views are being adopted and normalized
Numbers on the far left are misleading as Die Linke is bleeding members to the BSW but the BSW is taking their sweet time handing out membership cards, double-checking every single applicant. Reportedly they have a backlog of at least 8000 applicants or such and at least 20k people generally interested. Wagenknecht is at least 70% tankie so it doesn't surprise that they're doing a vanguard thing.
Since not everyone is expected to become member of a political party, a more apt comparison would be to membership numbers (and changes in those) for other German parties.
Thanks for the link. Some big parties seem to have hundreds of thousands of members. Didn’t see much for 2024 other than:
Zu Beginn des Jahres 2024 meldeten mehrere Parteien einen starken Mitgliederzuwachs. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen berichteten von 8.000 Neumitgliedern in den ersten beiden Monaten des Jahres.
In any case, considering the political context of our times, AfD’s growth is nothing to scoff at.
In that video, he argues Houthis are shooting ships delivering weapons to Israel. However, basically all of the ships the Houthis attacked were not even heading to or from Israel. Yemen does not have any moral leg to stand on when shooting civilians peaceably trading via the sea.
We will continue to destroy those attacking civilian shipping until they are no longer able to do so.
Every target they Houthi's hit so far has been directly related to their claims. Claims that they were not related have been proven false. The recent oil tanker was British. The first big hijacked ship was israeli.
The ship you are talking about had a US flag. Do you see Russian flagged aid trucks going into to Ukraine too?
The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel is owned by US-listed Star Bulk Carriers Corp.
Massive props to the Houthi's for being consistent in their blockade and not just allowing ships through because it would strategically benefit them.
Shipping companies are extremely secretive about their ownership. They fly one flag, are owned by someone else, but also used by another company that leases them etc.
The fact is: Every ship that has been hit so far did have ties to the countries that the Houthi's are not allowing passage until their Genocide in israel is over.
Yemen
"In the late 1160s, the Yemenite ruler 'Abd-al-Nabī ibn Mahdi gave Jews a choice of conversion to Islam or martyrdom."
(893) "Under the Zaydi rule, the Jews were considered to be impure and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by youth, a Jew was not allowed to fight them. In such situations, he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby."
Egypt
"In 1300 Sultan Al-Nasir Qalawan ordered all Jews under his rule to wear yellow headgear to isolate the Egyptian Jewish community. This law would be enforced for centuries and later amended in 1354 to force all Jews to wear a sign in addition to yellow headwear. On multiple occasions the ulema persuaded the government to close or convert synagogues. Even major places of pilgrimage for Egyptian Jews such as the Dammah Synagogue were forced to close in 1301. Jews subsequently were excluded from bath houses and were prohibited to work in the national treasury. This repression of the Jewish community would continue for centuries."
and more
"In 1656, all Jews were expelled from Isfahan and forced to convert to Islam because of a common belief that their Jewishness was impure."
"in 1661 they were allowed to revert to Judaism, although they were still required to wear a distinctive patch on their clothing."
muslims made jews wear patches before the nazis did.
Farhud (also Farhood; Arabic: الفرهود) was the pogrom or the "violent dispossession" that was carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on 1–2 June 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War.
THE BRITS took over Baghdad and then did Pogroms. Let's blame the Arabs!
Don't look up what European colonialism had to do with Jewish persecution either that's going to be very inconvenient.
I also clicked on the Damascus Affair 1840 link. Since you didn't, I'll help you out.
Spoiler alert: It's Europe again:
Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, Syria had been part of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922). However, in 1831, eight years before the Tanzimat reforms, Ottoman Syria had come under the control of the Egyptian Muhammad Ali, the viceroy of Ottoman Egypt who had turned against the sultan. Muhammad Ali was said to have been influenced by European powers, particularly by France, which often attempted to safeguard and ameliorate the position of members of Catholic orders in the region.
"According to Iraqi government and British historical sources violence started when a delegation of Jewish Iraqis arrived at the Palace of Flowers (Qasr al Zuhur) to meet with the Regent Abdullah, and were attacked en route by an Iraqi Arab mob as they crossed Al Khurr Bridge. Iraqi Arab civil disorder and violence then swiftly spread to the Al Rusafa and Abu Sifyan districts, and got worse the next day when elements of the Iraqi police began joining in with the attacks upon the Jewish population, involving shops belonging to it being set on fire and a synagogue being destroyed. Many Jewish girls were gang-raped and children maimed and killed in front of their families."
"Shalom Darwish, the secretary of the Jewish community in Baghdad, testified that several days before the Farhud, the homes of Jews were marked with a red palm print ("Hamsa"), by al-Futuwa youth. Al-Sabawi also instructed Jews in Baghdad to pack suitcases and to wait to be taken to "detention camps" "for their own safety"."
"Two days before the Farhud, Yunis al-Sabawi, a government minister who proclaimed himself the governor of Baghdad, summoned Rabbi Sasson Khaduri, the community leader, and recommended to him that Jews stay in their homes for the next three days as a protective measure. He had planned for a larger massacre, preparing to broadcast a call for the Baghdad public to massacre Jews. However, the broadcast was never made since al-Sabawi was forced to flee the country."
planned and done by muslim iraqis.
not to mention all of the other massacres and anti-semitism cases i've linked.
but it's pretty clear by this point you'll justify any case of anti-semitism by arabs / muslims.
someone here didn't read.
the ones who initiated the pogrom weren't part of the british government. they were part of the coup government who took power from the british
nonetheless you're ignoring everything else i linked, like the persecution of yemenite jews.
or the persecution and discrimination against isfahan jews in iran and how they were forced to wear badges under islamic rule. centuries before the nazis.
You're right I did miss some info. It was Nazis and Britis. But the Pogrom happened under the Brits.
it's at the ramp up of WW2 and everyone wanted to control the oil. So Baghdad got a nice amount of Nazi propaganda. And their government overthrown of course.
The British also delayed their entry into Baghdad for 48 hours, which some testimonies suggest was due to having ulterior motives in allowing a clash to happen between Muslims and Jews in the city.[29]
Now the 1300 one could be true I haven't read it yet. But there I am very much noticing a theme of Europeans showing up
Many of these "Arab" ones were very much pushed on the Arab Jews by Europe.
rashid ali was an iraqi muslim, so was yunis al-sabawi, so were al-futuwa youth that marked jewish houses before the farhud and so were the iraqi mob and police that massacred and raped jews.
arabs aren't infantile human beings with no agency or responsibility.
you wrote that these things only happened in europe. iraq isn't europe.
either way i gave other examples without any kind of european presence. and there are plenty more.
I said this in a thread in World News- what will be interesting domestically now is whether or not this gives Biden a boost in the polls. It may be too late.
I think it's not too late. We have lots of time before the election. I think anyone who can make peace in the Middle East, even if it's just walking things back to a previous stalemate, has a hell of a foreign policy win.
That being said, a reset to where things were before does little for the Palestinian people as regards the original cause of this violence, and I wonder whether they will be largely forgotten or if they will continue to be important to American politics the way Ukraine has.
I am a very vocal critic of Biden for supporting the Palestinian genocide.
I have railed on him in thread after thread for enabling the slaughter of Palestinians.
I am one single person but I want to vote for Biden, this genocide is just a red line for me.
I can really only speak for the left but mark my words if Biden genuinely stops this genocide (or starts taking meaningful action to stop it) the vast majority of those voters will come back because this isn’t about rejecting Biden (have y’all even been paying attention to leftists organizing around voting “uncommitted” in the primaries as a thoughtful way to mitigate splitting the party?), this is about rejecting neoliberalism’s stranglehold over the democratic party and the absolutely horrific consequences that happen when we don’t do the work to reject the intellectually suffocating and ideologically lazy environment created by neoliberalism and centrism (that inevitably plays directly into the hands of fascists as history has shown over and over again).
Barely anybody on the left who has indicated they don’t want to vote for Biden because of his appalling lack of desire to stop the genocide of the Palestinians is going to react to Biden genuinely creating a ceasefire by not changing their position and supporting Biden over Trump. Leftists understand just as well as centrists that Trump will be worse.
What centrists can’t wrap their mind around is that if we don’t fight existentially for Palestinians now than Gaza will be considered a successful prototype by rightwing fascist western parties/governments all over the world and we will see this kind of violence become the new world order. We need to stamp this shit out now, and many of us on the left feel that the only effective leverage point is setting Biden’s ego for desiring to win the presidency as an old piece of shit against his loyalty to Israel (along with most of the Republican and Democratic parties).
Is Biden directly complicit in the mass murder of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians no matter if he stops the genocide today? Of course, and he will always deserve the jeering insult “Genocide Joe” for it as a tiny penance to pay. However like the rest of y’all I understand that all US presidents are mass murderers. George Bush directly caused 1 million Iraqi citizens to die…. for what? How fucked up is it the way Obama escalated highly illegal unilateral drone strikes completely hidden from the scrutiny of the US public?
I don’t need Biden to be a good person I agree with to vote for him, I need him to come back over what is a very very very reasonable red line.
What centrists can’t wrap their mind around is that if we don’t fight existentially for Palestinians now than Gaza will be considered a successful prototype by rightwing fascist western parties/governments all over the world and we will see this kind of violence become the new world order.
Gaza isn't the prototype. In my mind that would be Xinjiang, and the "reeducation" of the Uighur community. The next example would be Ukraine (Crimea first, then Luhansk and Donetsk, and finally the whole country in 2022). Gaza is third at best.
Ukraine is a war, it is modern imperialism, an army invades a country and an another army fights to repel the invasion.
Gaza is a genocide.
Apples and oranges though both are horrendous.
If you think the Palestinian Genocide in Gaza is a war you need to unplug your brain from cable news because it is decaying your capacity to understand reality, slap yourself in the face, touch some grass, topple your world view to pieces and begin over again from the standpoint that human life, all human life, is precious and that the many are never responsible for the actions of the one.
Quick question for you. What do you think tRump will do if he wins? You sound like a troll. You bring up Obama with drone strikes even though what was it, eight months in on tRumps presidency he already surpassed Obaman's kills with drone strikes. Don't have to answer that, we already know what you're going to say, just answer this one, you a bot or troll?
Nowhere did I say I like Trump, Trump is a fascist, that isn’t hyperbole or shrill lefty talk,bit is just just brand at this point.
Biden needs to stop the Palestinian genocide so that Trump doesn’t win.
I don’t feel like this makes me a troll, maybe you disagree with me. Fine. My intentions are not disingenuous however, I want the least amount of harm to come to all humans and animals however best that may be. In my opinion, that means putting all our chips on the table now and making it clear that no matter what Trump does, Biden has no path to the presidency if he directly backs an ongoing genocide with US weapons against the majority will of the US public (by a sizable margin).
Biden never had a problem with the mass slaughter of women and children. Here's him in 1982:
Begin said Biden “rose and delivered a very impassioned speech” defending the invasion. Begin said he was shocked at how passionately Biden supported Israel’s invasion when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.” Begin said, “I disassociated myself from these remarks,” adding: “I said to him: No, sir; attention must be paid. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war. Sometimes there are casualties among the civilian population as well. But it is forbidden to aspire to this. This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt civilians.” The comments were striking from Begin, who had been notorious as a leader of the Irgun, a militant group that carried out some of the worst acts of ethnic cleansing accompanying the creation of the state of Israel, including the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre.
People see a lot of immigrants coming into their area, and taking jobs. It’s not hard to see how people would draw a connection between the above statement and connect it to “that’s why I couldn’t get a job”. There’s a natural push back there.
Some companies see the influx of immigrants and realize they can get cheaper labor, and those that don’t get the job (the ones who already lived in that area) get disgruntled. It’s easy to talk some of them into joining a side that pushes back on immigration.
One of the things the far right looks at is immigration.
The left typically asks for bigger government and more social welfare programs (more taxes).
The right is typically smaller government and less social welfare programs (less taxes).
At a time when we are drowning in debt and can’t afford to buy food, have less taxes and more money in our pocket is an enticing idea. Easy to pull people to the right.
The worse the above problems get, the further to the right people go.
The further to the right they go, the less they hear from the left. Now they only see and hear one side. It becomes a vicious cycle at that point.
reuters.com
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