Originally published at: The Supreme Court Took A Sledgehammer To American Democracy
This is special hair-on-fire edition of TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. The organizing principle for TPM’s core coverage since Jan. 6, 2021, has been the conceit that we are a vigilant watchdog over the long, slow, unsteady process of holding Donald Trump to account under the law for his efforts to overturn the…
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Our supremely corrupted SCOTUS has made certain that yesterday is a day that will live in infamy. Our civil war will rage over the next four months and our only option is to win it.
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My anxiety level is off the charts.
I deliberately missed Maddow last night. I watched the Copa Americas match between the US and Uruguay instead. As is usual lately, the US Men’s Team played well enough to lose.
To anyone at TPM who’s listening: I had to come in through the backdoor again today.
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We are in a quandary. SCOTUS ruled most of Jack Smith’s J6 case away. The documents case could go forward since virtually every bit of it concerns actions taken after TCF left office, but Loose Cannon is doing everything she can to scuttle that. Not sure where Smith goes now. Maybe make a big public spectacle out of the process to determine official acts before Chutkan in hopes that the MSM will agree to report on it. Alternatively, Smith could do a Hail Mary attempt to dislodge Cannon. Or he could bring a new case of some sort - maybe TCF’s handling of secret docs elsewhere, or indict the unindicted co-conspirators in the J6 case. Tis a puzzlement.
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‘This is good news for John McCain！’
But seriously, I think the astounding SC ruling could actually help Pres. Biden win re-election. It reminds me of the Dobbs decision, where conservatives got something they really wanted that turned out to be an electoral disaster. The fact that the SC has essentially stated that Mr. Trump can be a “Dictator on Day 1” if he wants to could be the wake up call for many independents and Republican-leaning voters who have reservations about Mr. Trump. They will realize that if Mr. Trump is re-elected, HRC really will be locked up!
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The fact that they are potentially granting this power to Democratic Presidents suggests that they assume that TMFWWNBN is going to win and they won’t have to deal with an enormously powerful Democrat.
This is essentially the last act in the RW take over of power. They have to be defeated.
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It also means that all those institutional Democrats are going to have to hold their noses and expand the Supreme Court as well as legislate some guard rails for the Judicial branch and the executive branch, and fix our broken electoral system.
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I messaged the powers that be.
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I think the path for the docs case is distressingly clear: Cannon rules that Smith was not legally appointed. Smith appeals. Whatever the Eleventh Circuit decides is appealed to SCOTUS and there you go. Nicely delayed until after the election.
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RIP
U.S. Constitution
September 17, 1787 – July 1, 2024
The ultra-wealthy now have everything they need to start killing off “undesirables.” And they will need to kill off a lot of us, because population control is the only solution to sustainability that they will contemplate.
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Or they’ll just decide that it wasn’t an official act.
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kelaine,
Hello!
The comment system is working fairly well for me now, but I still feel that it was more robust and easier to use before. The TPM technical updates may be necessary to maintain site integrity, but they always seem to cause major glitches and never seem to actually make the site more attractive or easier to use.
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Pretty much sums it up.
“A republic, if you can keep it.” --**Benjamin Franklin’s response to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
Time for Democrats to mobilize and consolidate behind Biden for the sake of the republic and the rule of law.
Surreptitious back door access here too.
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I have to assume that the conservative SCOTUS would only rule as they did IF they (Republicans) planned to take the Federal Government, in particular the executive branch, by force this election cycle. Sure, they hope Donald Trump wins the electoral college because that gives them more legitimacy, but I cannot see they crush democracy with such a blunt axe unless they meant it.
This was to guarantee the next coup succeeds as much as it is to protect Donald J Trump now.
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The way forward lies somewhere in this line of thought. The imperative has always been to ensure Trump is not elected. The rest is hugely important, but is backup.
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I don’t have much hope about 1/3 to 2/3 of our population taking notice of this, and taking a step back from their support of RW politics or the Republican party. But I do know that a good portion of the literate members of that coalition may have some discomfort over what just occurred. They used constitutional arguments to argue their flawed points, and now even that rug has been jerked out from under them, as well as us. I think this will be shocking to them, too, but they will likely recover quickly.
David Kurtz writes
“The work of the House Jan. 6 committee was pivotal in this regard. While the Justice Department moved quickly against the Jan. 6 rioters, it moved more slowly on other fronts; but it eventually brought to bear the full weight of its resources and professionalism to the enormous task of prosecuting a former president.”
I disagree, especially about the J6C. I was screaming it at the time. Dems held The House and failed to implement election reforms they promised. They used up every moment of their time in flogging the half-dead Chump horse and ignored the elected MoC who are still in power and obstructing everything to do with J6. These MoC are letting Chump control congress from Mar-A-Lago.
It isn’t the J6C’s fault we lost The House in the '22 election, but they could have done so much more (for example…holding public hearings looong before the summer of '22). Garland has been a huge disappointment. The Media doubled-down on their decades long trend of looking the other way (when it’s Rs).
The Rs are to blame, not the Ds…but we see the Rs are more effective out-of-power than the Ds are in-power. And the Rs never miss a trick when in-power.
The Fed Soc and other players that helped capture the judiciary and the corruption of SCOTUS…I can’t really lay that at the feet of Dems in any way. Other than, it was obvious what The Right was doing and Dems refused to play hardball.
After the 2020 election, we had the presidency, The House, and a new AG. We kept a corrupt head (R) of the FBI in place. If there was ever a time, and good reason, to have gone full Hard Ass Berserker that was the time…and the Ds did not.
I am not saying any of this is Ds fault, but it has to be all-out war going forward and the voters have to see the Ds laying it all on the line for the sake of the country.
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Mark my words: Democrats acting officially under presidential immunity will be treated differently by the judicial, legislative and executive branches than republicans acting officially under presidential immunity. You already know that is how this ruling will be carried out. Democrats will act judicially while republicans abuse the ruling, period.
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Roberts practically invited Trump to break any laws he wants to steal the election, by promising him that the Oval Office will protect him forever if he can clamber into it.
Roberts did this a couple days after hijacking the important biz-governing jobs of the federal government. He kept the part he wanted to preserve, and is dangling the rest in front of Trump to do with as he likes.
Roberts thinks he will be able to control a king. He ought to know better, as an amateur historian.
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Even better if Biden steps down so that ANY reasonable D nominee can push this point with more vigor and confidence.
But the larger point isn’t that the president – and only the president – is not only free of any negative consequences of criminal behavior, but the occupant of that office can now aggressively use that power to extort whatever he wants from anyone in the country, Pay me or I’ll have you indicted or have the IRS audit your taxes. Stay at my hotels or you won’t get a single government dollar for anything.
Vote for me – even for a third term – or your state won’t get a dime in disaster relief, support for schools, roads, bridges, police, whatever.
This is the US now. Maybe it was always like that.
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