A German court just decided the Federal Office for the Protection of the #Constitution (#Verfassungsschutz) can continue to classify the #AfD party as a "rechtsextremer Verdachtsfall" ("suspected case of #right-wing #extremism"). This is the 2nd-worst classification. The worst is "gesichert rechtsextrem" ("assured right-wing extremism").
The judge said "The smoke alarm of the constitution goes off.".
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar responds to PRRI's latest poll, which finds that a majority of Americans across almost all faith lines and in almosst all states support legal access to abortion. But white Christian nationalists strongly oppose this:
"As Tears for Fears warned, 'Everybody wants to rule the world.' That’s why we have to be so vigilant in monitoring every group’s motivations."
"Christian nationalists are one of the worst possible groups to have any say in our government because they are at their core against the U.S. Constitution. They want everyone to live under Christian rule, even though there is very little consensus among Christians on what Christianity is."
For people who claim to be the ultimate champions of the #Constitution, #Republicans sure do hate the Constitution. The federal #government cannot punish or discriminate against people for their beliefs or their speech. It doesn't matter if they're #citizens or not. If they're under the jurisdiction of the #UnitedStates, they benefit from all the protections enumerated in the Constitution. This latest move is a blatant violation of the #FirstAmendment.
"Top NYT Editor Offers Stunning Defense of Coverage of Trump."
"The failure to clearly describe Trump's plan to cancel prosecutions of himself & other elements of his legal strategy as threats to the system itself, that is, as efforts to put himself above the law."
In his own words, #Trump is promising to rule as a #dictator on ‘day one,’ use the #military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf, and put his own sick desire for revenge and retribution ahead of America's best interests. Trump is a danger to the #Constitution and a threat to our #democracy.
A collection of far-right #Missouri senators is putting the health of millions of Missourians at risk by engaging in a pointless #filibuster. The group is demanding that the governor sign a bill to prohibit #PlannedParenthood from receiving any #Medicaid reimbursements, and lawmakers must pass a bill that would make it harder for Missourians to change the #constitution. These people are despicable and the Missouri voters should vote them out.
After Bush 43 and his executive power grabs, a fed up Republican judge said that the Right just takes positions, then tries to shoehorn them into some “originalism” that never really existed. #scotus#meme#immunity#constitution#history#politics
"While textualism and originalism were supposed to be, we were told, our touchstones for interpretation under the conservatives’ legal vision for America, we heard little of that from the court’s conservative men on Thursday when Donald Trump’s immunity claim came to the justices. Then, text and history were inconveniences.
"Arguments at the Supreme Court this week were not about law. They were about power & control. …
The warning siren was the arguments this week. The arguments from those men were evidence of a danger no longer hidden — even among the public statements of the justices of the Supreme Court — for the rule of law.
Clearly viewing that danger must be central to our understanding of where the country is at — & where it could be going."
Judge Wendell Griffen on the day fascism appeared in the Supreme Court:
"Yesterday a lawyer stood in the well of the Supreme Court of the United States and boldly declared that a President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution if he/she commits murder, bribery, sedition, conspiracy to overthrow the government, or any other crimes as an 'official act.'”
#RonDeSantis is imposing laws that violate the #Constitution, infringing on the Constitutional rights of vulnerable #minorities he doesn't like, and refusing to abide by federal laws that he's opposed to. The man is a #tyrant who's bitter about his pathetic showing as a presidential candidate, and behaving as though laws and the Constitution are optional.
“'I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S. Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act,' lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm defends democratic election laws, wrote today on social media. He added: 'I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.'”
As Jonathan V. Last says, Trump is the great revealer. For years, conservatives claimed they were all about the Constitution as written, the rule of law, the judiciary not legislating.
Turns out – with the Supreme Court leading the way – that this was all a big lie. The Supremes are a charade, and corrupt to the hilt, the right-wing bloc controlling the court. (Those are my words, not Last's.)
"The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party and to an ambiguous degree right-wing anti-regulatory ideology. If we believe in a different set of policies or even democratic self-governance we will have to succeed at that with the Supreme Court acting as a consistent adversary."
On Thursday, the #scotus will be hearing arguments where lawyers for the criminal defendant are arguing that all former presidents are forever immune from criminal prosecution for any official acts done in office.
Failure to respect the election of a new President, is the ultimate crime against the people, who are the basis of government. The President, by constitutional design, should have no role- official or unofficial-in the determination of the people's
vote. Immunity for the crimes here alleged would be most abhorrent to the Framers, because immunity would upset the constitutional scheme and aid a President in overriding the people's power over him.
The Framers would also have been appalled that Trump, despite having left office, seeks permanent immunity. As a Federalist wrote for the Maryland ratifying convention:
It seems, however, that the president may possibly be continued for life. He may so, provided he deserve it.
The Framers did not put an immunity clause in the #Constitution.They knew how to, and they did not. They did not provide immunity to the president. Wasn't the whole point that the president was not a monarch and the president was not supposed to be above the law.