Originally published at: The Weekender: Throwing Down the Gauntlet for SCOTUS
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender 
The Brooks Brothers Riot 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 … There’s a curious reference several pages into the Jack Smith filing that was unsealed this week, which provided the fullest account yet of Trump’s effort to coup his way out of losing the 2020 election. It’s to the…
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Of the justices currently on the court, Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Roberts all advisedthe Bush campaign in some form or another on the 2000 election fight. By including the reference to the Brooks Brothers Riot, Smith tied the violence of Trump’s 2020 election theft attempt back to the 2000 election. I’m open to interpretations here, but given his audience, it’s striking as a particularly sharp way of calling out the same people who will have final say over the case.
Jack Smith is a man after my own heart. He may go down, but he’s going to go down fighting and take a few scalps with him.
It’s almost like a Western where the doomed hero fights on knowing the odds are stacked against him, standing up for his principles at every step.
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I like your surgical precision
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Yeah! It’s Donald Trump. We all know he’s a lying asshole, but it’s October and it’s his right to lie, cheat, act senile and be a sleaze! It’s Trump being Trump!
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By including the reference to the Brooks Brothers Riot, Smith tied the violence of Trump’s 2020 election theft attempt back to the 2000 election. I’m open to interpretations here, but given his audience, it’s striking as a particularly sharp way of calling out the same people who will have final say over the case.
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A very loud, very specific media campaign should be waged for Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Roberts to recuse themselves, for having participated in similar crimes. Throw in Ginni Thomas, too, for having a hand in all the election shenanigans and J6 and send the message to Clarence to recuse also.
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Oops. Darn autocorrect. Let me manually correct autocorrect.
But, in a sense, Jack Smith does need to use a scalpel to get this case through SCOTUS with surgical precision.
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If only they didn’t have a powerful network of pro-slavery, pro-Civil War churches to back them up.
Fuck the Church.
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“What are you doing talking about something that’s four years ago?”
Answer: Because your party’s candidate, with your help, incited a coup to overthrow the government and still has not been held accountable. To most true Americans this would be considered an act of traitors to this country and its constitution. That’s what!
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Bravo, Jack Smith, for your fine legal skills, persuasive writing, and unrelenting persistence! From a grateful admirer.
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But this is a time for boundary drawing.
far right to fascist.
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Red states are right to lie states. C’mon, that’s common knowledge. If you’d just look down at the fine print of the Ninth Commandment, you’ll see it says does not apply when you know God is on your side.
And fighting hard against fact-checking is basically insisting on your right to lie without consequence. It’s really that simple. I wish the media would point that out.
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All that, and that it’s still relevant in the here and now. Trump has basically promised to use that same approach to steal this election if he’s on the short end.
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Undoubtedly, the final topic of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate was one of the strongest moments for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D). Sen. JD Vance (R) had to reap what he sowed after he tried to dodge a question on the peaceful transfer of power.
“[Trump] is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said after a lengthy back and forth on Jan. 6. He then turned to Vance and asked the inevitable question: “Did he lose the 2020 election?”
Vance’s non-response damned not only Vance but all of the Republican Trump suckups. I think refusing to admit Trump lost disqualifies every MAGA who refuses to speak the truth. That seems to be the entire functioning Republican party.
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It’s the level of detail in Smith’s filing, in particular, that throws down the gauntlet for the high court.
John Roberts: “Hold my beer.”
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New ad for Harris should be this:
We do have an immigration problem. It’s also a billionaire problem. DEPORT Musk, Murdoch, and Thiel.
I have been encouraged by recent Harris ads that are pounding the tax breaks for billionaires, and the latest one I am noticing has a few seconds of a still of Musk in a tux-n-tails when they mention the tax breaks for billionaires.
But I am thinking of an ad that turns their Immigrants and Foreigners on it’s head and highlights that it is MUCH more than tax breaks. That Vance and Chump are one-to-one tied to billionaire puppet masters, and a vote for them is installing Musk and Thiel in the WH.
The ad can spend some lingering shots on Musk, Thiel, Putin, Murdoch, Orban, Erdogan, Chinese, and Saudis. If there is time, throw in the 10 million dollar Egypt bribe, the Oil Barons that Chump is pumping for bribes, and all the ways Citizens United seems to have opened up all the spigots on foreign influence with top elected officials.
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I think their participation in anti-democratic activities was probably one of the key motivations for their nominations. Certainly in the case of Roberts there is a pretty open willingness to embrace voter suppression.
We’ve been hung up on the SCOTUS having a partisan majority, perhaps we should have been examining the nature of their partisanship. We have 3 members with direct ties to undemocratic activities to install their designated leader. One member who voted for the arguments they made to justify installing their designated leader and one member who goes out of his way to display his contempt for people who don’t support his particular brand of anti-democratic politics. That leaves one member of the that majority who may actually believe in the rule of law, but who also has a reputation of demonstrating complete contempt for those who disagree with him.
I frequently allude to Taney and Freisler, but in truth we seem to have a majority made up of Taney’s or Freislers. These are all Federalist picks. Their anti-democratic positions are not random chance. Our SCOTUS has been hand selected to be anti-democratic. The only question is what flavor of authoritarian.
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Cooper: Just not be sleazy basically.
Isn’t that kind of like wishing him dead?
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Withdrew comment
Popper’s paradox of tolerance also works for “constitutionally guaranteed free speech” and with AI and Deep Fakes on the rise, that tolerance will be severely tested in the coming years.
Under strict scrutiny, a state must use the “least restrictive means available for advancing [its] interest.” The First Amendment does not “permit speech-restrictive measures when the state may remedy the problem by implementing or enforcing laws that do not infringe on speech.” … “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
But then what happens when rich people have firehoses and common people have garden hoses. More speech may indeed an antidote — if you can afford it.
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