Weisselberg is going to have NEW YORK STATE throw the book at him then. HE is the guardian of the gate. I don’t think he wants to be bankrupted by a court case or to go to jail for the rest of his life.
I’m not sure how it helps him either. I thought Weisselberg had long been cooperating with prosecutors? In any event, this may be a pardon he’s issuing just because he can, maybe even an attempt to scratch Weisselberg’s back so that he’ll scratch his. I also suspect he’ll try to flood the zone with silly pardons in hopes of concealing the ones truly important to him.
OT: I wonder how this will change the political calculus on state and local funding for the next attempt at relief. The rich have done so well during the pandemic, that some states with progressive tax systems (i.e., mostly blue states) are actually expecting a surplus. Blue state bail out my ass.
Without an injunction, Commerce can do whatever the hell it wants, subject to judicial review in the ordinary course.
Not especially. The cowardly punt indicates that they want to avoid ruling on the merits, not that they’re ready and willing to kiss this pig on the lips.
I’m choosing to take it as SCOTUS doesn’t want to deal with this and is hoping Commerce can’t get it completed before Biden gets in office and drops the whole scheme.
More like they’re hoping Commerce continues to fail at getting it done so Joe can fix the problem before they have to hear it. That was (minus the express reference to Biden) the excuse they used at oral argument to claim the whole thing was premature.
ETA: On re-read, I think we are in complete agreement.
TPM needs to hire someone who knows how to interpret a court decision from a lawyers perspective. Sometimes it really is too early to decide a question.
In the case of the census the constitution is very clear, the census count’s total population. It is also very clear in the 14th Amendment that congressional seats are apportioned on total population.
What Trump was trying to do is suppress the total population count by scaring illegal immigrants into not completing the census form. Whether they succeeded in doing that is the question that needs to be answered.
But it is not at all clear whether redistricting within the individual states is required to be based on total population, VAP, CVAP, or any other basis. It would obviously be a 9-0 decision on apportionment. I would wager there are five votes at SCOTUS to let the states do whatever fuckery they want on redistricting.
Republicans just can’t handle the Rule of Law, democracy or the Constitution. They won’t accept our government unless they can make it into a Banana Republic:
Where do Republicans find these fascist NeoNazis with such bizarre names. You could at least understand who the KKK were. They didn’t pretend to be anything but what they were. Not so with the MAGA. They think they are patriots instead of Putin’s stooges?
Simply said, SCOTUS (at least 5 of the Judges thereon) doesn’t want any more poorly written Trump hot potatoes thrown in their laps, and just wants to pass those same hot potatoes into Biden’s lap. So he can take the heat. So they can go home and sit cozy by their own cozy hearth through the next month. (Pass it by, make it cry, make it blue, to paraphrase Ringo.)
Last month, Dr. William Bookless, found himself promoted to “acting” head of the NNSA. It seems like there are two possible scenarios here. a) DOE was not on top of things (the usual incompetence and negligence), or b) DOE was on top of things, but not in a good way, pushing some Trumpy agenda yet to be revealed (reckless endangerment or conspiracy). Either way, Dan Brouillette got some splainin’ to do.
Pardoning might actually unlock his lips at the grand jury?
Trump loses no matter what he does from here on end. Karma has caught up with him. There will be no rest for the Trump grifters. Don’t even own a home to go back to any longer. They burned way too many bridges and chiseled way too many of the wrong sort of people out of funds in the process.
Putin has already accept Biden. He got everything he wanted out of the Trump and McConnell. Time to cast them them to the winds.