It's not just a vote for Pres. Biden... it's a vote for valued ideals, its a vote for a constitutional republic and not a king. It's a vote for 59 year old VP Harris, it's a vote for the many highly intelligent, loyal to the constitution and diverse people on Bidens staff. It's a vote for the continuation of the "More Perfect Union"... IMO, literally, Joe is the least portion of my vote, as the prospect of losing all of the 248 years prior is far far bigger than Joe.
Oh, well, there it is, absolute immunity for official acts.
"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." -- Roberts
@MiriShuli@GottaLaff
Yes, once Trump is gone that won't solve the problem but maybe the best course of action is to make sure Biden wins the election. Biden isn't stupid and has intelligent people advising him and the vice president.
There is a rise in authoritarianism around the world not only in the US. Times are frightening. I am hoping that if we work together we will defeat those who want to impose their views upon us.
"The Roberts supermajority has taken a radical course where the judiciary is increasingly the final arbiter not just on the law but on the facts, the interpretation of those facts, the application of those facts in given situations, and the technical, scientific, and professional implications of those facts in the real world.
"While the decisions coming out of this Court are bad enough, the fact that they’re coming from a collection of judges who have responded to serious charges of ethical lapses and outright corruption levied against them with nothing but contempt and condescension.
Make no mistake about it — this is the most radical, destructive, arrogant Supreme Court in the entire history of the United States of America."
“'It’s good to be the king,' to quote Mel Brooks from History of the World: Part 1. He was parodying King Louis XVI, the last king of France. Donald Trump can now repeat the line if he wins another election and begins his reign as the first king of white Christian nationalist America."
@GottaLaff: That is a scary list but unfortunately accurate at the moment.
As disturbing and shocking as these decisions are, we need to remember that historically SCOTUS has been conservative, or even reactionary for much of our history. @Teri_Kanefield covers some of that in this informative post.
It's well worth reading to put SCOTUS's decisions into perspective.
The other thing we cannot forget, hard as it is sometimes, is that the courts cannot solve our political problems. Only we the voters can do that. If enough people want democracy to work, it will survive. That means we all have to keep doing our part to defend it with more democracy. Not less.
You're certainly doing yours. The rest of us have to step up and do ours as well.
** gets off of soap box because it gets crushed under the weight of the moment **
Maybe we need to make some space to have conversations about the way that rigid gender expectations can hurt people. I'm not talking about trans people, exclusively (in fact the trans people I know are among the most sophisticated when it comes to processing these kinds of events and emotions)
No, where I see a lot of unprocessed trauma flailing around putting everyone in a bad way is from cis people who have unexamined psychological harm due to their failure to conform to some gender norm. 1/
For one thing: bullying isn't a "normal healthy part of growing up" It's not normal to get bullied, it's not normal to be a bully. It's not something that ought NOT to be common, it's preventable, avoidable nearly always.
And there is no value, nothing learned in kids bullying each other. It's just a failure to teach and support mutual respect.
But when many people feel like they could be ostracized, rejected from the tribe, unpersoned over any random little thing that failure is massive. 4/
For my husband it's ordering drinks. He told me about the sheer terror of:
Not being able to tell what gender drinks were.
Being attracted to drinks that were "for women"
Ordering whisky on ice because that was the one thing he knew wouldn't be "incorrect" and hating it.
Now he drinks boba and laughs about it.
But why did this world have to stress out this kind wonderful man over something so ... pointless? He was afraid to sip my martini. Why do we do this to each other??
I've seen a lot of people telling me that this story means they think #Biden is weak so they want him in the election. No...you're missing the goal here. What they are doing is declaring how they will conduct a coordinated lawfare campaign to screw the Democratic nominee.
And if it's going to be held against Biden that he did not do a good job countering Trump's constant stream of lies, then I can think of a whole heck of a lot of reporters, journalists and interviewers who also need to resign.
@rlstone4dems@GottaLaff I’m starting to feel skeptical of these reports. Coming from who? Joe Biden is my candidate unless he says otherwise, my support isn’t “cracking.” The disinformation campaign is in full swing.
@skyfire747
I'll have to contact them on Monday for the wtw unit, so I'll ask about the plaster work then. It's just a small area, and it's been painted now.... But I could always check... 😊 @MAJ1@weirdfolks
@ldmay65
Fankoos 🫶🏻 the painting is slower due to the primer (but I had some great help, I'll need to prime two walls first today and then I can start painting some others) and some parts of the walls are harder to paint...
But slowly, the downstairs are is getting more done... 😊
This afternoon, dad will help with some lights, so hopefully we can tackle that a bit. 😊
Thanks! 🌸 @weirdfolks
#SCOTUS is supposed to rule this morning on #Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
The decision will determine whether & how special counsel #JackSmith’s case against Trump can proceed — although it’s unlikely a trial would happen before #Election Day. But the ruling could also set an important #precedent for how to prosecute presidents for their actions in office.
“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, & 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.”
14/ Biden was shaking hands, literally JOGGED back to the mic, said, "I won't forget any of this. God love ya!" and jogged back to the crowd to shake hands.
"Project 2025’s call to dismantle NOAA by eliminating or privatizing key functions of the agency is the endgame of years of attempts by conservatives and right-wing media to attack the credibility of the agency and the veracity of the data it produces. It also illustrates that the conservative plan is not just to dismantle U.S. climate policy, but also to scrub the climate data that underpins it."
Asked by ABC if he's had a cognitive test lately, President #Biden cites his experience in office: "I have a cognitive test every single day. Everything I do."
@GottaLaff Lloyd Doggett, whom I have heard of, and a handful of people I never heard of are the big news that I am supposed to take so seriously. That they want Biden to step aside in favor of the Ghost of Elvis or some other magical entity that wins by gimmick.
@GottaLaff I think this decision may be a wakeup call. Combined with the unhinged performance from the other guy last Thursday, I think the momentum is going to shift drastically and quickly. I hope it is. I pray it is.
"... there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israel is committing the international ‘crime of all crimes’: that of genocide."
"... while our government has called for a ceasefire, they refuse to name Israel’s crimes or take the material action many have called for under international law, including implementing sanctions and throwing our weight behind a global arms embargo. As Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah asked in a 2023 essay commissioned but then censured by Harvard Law Review, “does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it?” "
Facebook is (still) full of fake photographs of "disabled veterans" sitting on the curb that say "Why don't photos like this ever trend?"
But it's not a photo of real people. This strikes me as disrespectful, fraudulent, stolen valor stuff. Never mind the endless whitewashing of the US Military by playing on our valid desire to take care of the people harmed by it.
You can report images as "AI generated" but it doesn't do anything. (I suspect it'd be used to make the images less detectable.)
What does it say if we spend our days gazing at fake images of fake suffering heroes from wars never declared, in places we know little about for reasons we can't articulate? Stirrings of national pride, oh & indignation "Why don't images like THIS ever trend?" Be the 100,000th "like" don't see the irony of that either!
Isn't it dystopian? Like a heavy-handed sci fi? I'm as unsettled by the popularity as the images themselves.
I guess one way to process this would be to write horror of it.