Today in Supreme Court History: August 5, 1974

The Volokh Conspiracy

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8/5/1974: Shortly after the Supreme Court decided United States v. Nixon, President Nixon released the "smoking gun" tape recorded in the Oval office.

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captcrisis 2 days ago

Davis v. Adams, 400 U.S. 1203 (decided August 5, 1969): Black upholds stay of Florida statute requiring incumbents of state office to resign that office before running for federal office; Black notes that there is not enough time before election for full Court to rule but believes that it would hold that Florida cannot add qualifications to candidates for federal office (the Court never ruled on the question, but the “resign to run” statute is still in force, with an exception for federal office, see https://www.votepinellas.com/ Candidates-Committees/Candidates/-Resign-to-Run)

Scaggs v. Larsen, 396 U.S. 1206 (decided August 5, 1969): Douglas holds that habeas corpus can be invoked by serviceman who claims that his term of duty was unfairly extended (he was penalized for not reporting for training but he was for some reason not permitted to attend); orders him released; 9th Circuit later affirmed conviction (without opinion) and cert denied, with Douglas dissenting

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1. Davy C 1 day ago
  
  Seems to me that a statute requiring incumbents of state office to resign before running for federal office isn’t putting a condition on candidates for federal office – it’s putting a condition on the current holders of the *state* office, which the state can absolutely do.
  
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2. Dilan Esper 16 hours ago
  
  I thought US Term Limits v. Thornton definitively ruled that states cannot add qualifications to candidates for federal office.
  
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  1. David Nieporent 16 hours ago
    
    Is this a qualification for a candidate for federal office, or a restriction on a state officeholder?
    
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JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago

Is U.S. v. Nixon a day that lives in infamy for Josh Blackman?

In the end, enough Republicans told Nixon that they could not support him, leading to his resignation.

The lesson Republicans took is “never again.”

==

It’s summer! Kiddies bored? SCOTUS has some fun stuff!

https://www.supremecourt.gov/visiting/activities.aspx

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1. not guilty 2 days ago
  
  In Richard Nixon’s day, there were still some principled Republicans who refused to defend Nixon’s unprincipled conduct.
  
  Nixon, who was nominated by five separate Republican National Conventions, was the central figure of the Republican Party in the twentieth century. Donald Trump, nominated by three separate conventions, is this century’s central figure of that party. Where are the principled Republicans now?
  
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  1. JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago
    
    “Where are the principled Republicans now?”
    
    Most of them are supporting Kamala Harris for President.
    
    [Orin Kerr was on record voting for Hillary Clinton.]
    
    https://substack.com/inbox/post/147358662
    
    Not “principled” in my book: “I won’t vote for Trump but will instead write Nikki Haley’s — who is supporting him — name in.”
    
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  2. Michael Ejercito 2 days ago
    
    His conduct was egregious.
    
    Today, there are no principled Democrats.
    
    https://ethicsalarms.com/2023/05/17/assorted-ethics-observations-on-the-durham-report-part-ii-the-substance/
    
    3. Barack Obama and Joe Biden actively participated in the scheme, as McCarthy’s last paragraph above reminds us. This was genuinely impeachable conduct, far, far worse than the contrived grounds for Trump’s two impeachments.
    
    Where are the Democrats who denounced the whole “Trump Colluded with the Russians®™ to Steal the 2016 Election” investigation. That did faer greater damage to Watergate. In 2018, two-thirds of Democrats believed Russians®™ actually hacked voting machines. President Jimmy Carter denied that President Trump won the 2016 election.
    
    This investigation undermined confidence in the federal law enforcement and intelligence establishment. Who are we to believe if a fraudster, child pornographer, or even terrorist managed to put the federal law enforcement establishment on trial?
    
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    1. Malika 2 days ago
      
      “The first installment, regarding the news media’s ongoing effort to bury this story, is here. Humble Talent’s invaluable summary of the Durham Report…”
      
      Sheesh.
      
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  3. Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
    
    In Richard Nixon’s day, he would have won the 1960 election had the blue team not systematically cheated, as is well documented and now fairly well understood. NOTHING has changed for your country’s blue team (including their cheating and lying!), save for the fact that they’re now more openly totalitarian, petulant, and largely don’t breed.
    
    The world would be a better, safer place today had N become the POTUS with the ’60 election rather than the incompetent, corrupt bootlegger’s son.
    
    Nixon, by the way, got donations from Hoffa (who rightly hated the Kennedy bros). He would have also deplored what happened to his red team from the period of Bush Sr till 2015, if not earlier. He would have supported Trump on: reworking free trade, illegal immigration, the national debt, and scaling back foreign misadventures.
    
    You know how I know? I’ve read Buchanan.
    
    Nixon, just like most blue teamers till the 1980s actually, would have been disgusted by what you’ve become. So, too, most blue teamers from that period (and their predecessors) would find your present day ‘liberal-progressive’ politics and culture to be totalitarian garbage. It’s not the stuff of a viable society or country, after all; it’s the mark of a culture in steep decline.
    
    You can reply with lies and insults, if you wish. Your word means nothing.
    
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    1. Malika 2 days ago
      
      “You can reply with lies and insults, if you wish. Your word means nothing.”
      
      I’m a troll and full of crap, I’d like to head that off!
      
      Notice the kind of troll Trump attracts?
      
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      1. Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
        
        ‘I’m a troll and full of crap, I’d like to head that off!’
        
        You haven’t.
        
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        Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf 2 days ago
        
        There’s quite a few lefties here whose responses are almost entirely insults. I especially appreciate the ones who sniff that posts are too silly to need rebutting. If that were the case, than a rebuttal would be less work than the insult.
        
        At least they are honest in showing the world they have no rebuttal.
        
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    2. Hugo S. Cunningham 1 day ago
      
      In 1960, Illinois was stolen from Nixon, but even if it was given back to Nixon, Kennedy still would have had a majority of electoral votes. Republican claims that maybe another State was stolen as well were weak and highly speculative.
      
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      1. Ilya Snowman 21 hours ago
        
        And Texas?
        
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  4. Frank Drackman 2 days ago
    
    On Milhouses worst day he was way better than that gutless Ward Healer Humpty Horratio Humphrey. Parkinsonian Joe drooling all over himself because he got a few “Hostages”(want to not get imprisoned for Spying on Roosha? Don’t go to Roosha and spy) back in a trade, Milhouse got thousands of POWs freed
    
    Frank
    
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  5. Dr. Ed 2 1 day ago
    
    He was NOT.
    
    He was nominated in 1960 — an election that was stolen.
    He was nominated (and won) in 1968 & 1972.
    
    1972 was a 49 state landslide, and Nixon didn’t do anything that Johnson & Kennedy hadn’t done.
    
    If Kennedy hadn’t been shot when he was, he likely would have gone down the same path as Nixon. There were a LOT of things starting to unravel in his administration, he was where Nixon was in 1971.
    
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    1. Davy C 1 day ago
      
      He’s counting the VP nominations too, I guess.
      
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2. Michael P 2 days ago
  
  50 years later, Democrats still do not admit that they elected a senile man to be president, that he has been mentally compromised for most of his term (at least), or that they have supported the conspiracy to hide Basement Joe’s incapacity from the public. They’re even running the #2 person in that conspiracy to replace Joe as president.
  
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  1. Krychek_2 2 days ago
    
    It’s not clear when Biden’s mental health issues first developed; I doubt it was before 2020. I had three conversations with him in 2020 and he seemed fine then. And he was about to be re-nominated in 2024 for the same reason Trump was: He had the overwhelming support of the base.
    
    That said, once his mental health issues surfaced, he should have been nudged aside. But the Democrats, being human, all hoped that either the problem would go away on its own or that someone else would take care of it since nobody wanted to be the first person to step forward.
    
    And while that is far from laudable, imagine how the GOP would have acted had the shoe been on the other foot once the problems became apparent. Instead of coming to Trump as a group and telling him it was time to go, as the Democrats did with Biden, the GOP leadership would have continued to cower, Trump would have refused to step down, and after he lost the election he would then go on a massive fundraising kick by claiming the election was stolen.
    
    So give the Democrats credit for ultimately doing the right thing, albeit tardily. I don’t think the GOP would have done the right thing at all.
    
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    1. captcrisis 2 days ago
      
      Well said. And wow — you spoke to the soon to be POTUS! More than once!
      
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      1. Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        I’m active in Democratic Party politics at the national level.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        Well, I always did take you as a smart and accomplished guy.
        
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        Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        Thanks.
        
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        David Nieporent 2 days ago
        
        I’m active in Democratic Party politics at the national level.
        
        Are you Kamala Harris?
        
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        Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        No, and you can tell us apart because she’s much better looking.
        
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        Frank Drackman 2 days ago
        
        I don’t know if being Pete and Mrs Booty-Judges Pool boy counts
        
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        Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
        
        So, you expect to get done in a RICO suit any time soon, then?
        
        Do you have ANY shame whatsoever for being actively involved (implicated) in a totalitarian imperialist cult?
        
        You KNOW that liberals, social democrats, and others, across the whole globe, would be better off if your gangster organisation didn’t exist, yeah?
        
        What’s it like knowing that even many of us in your allied Western countries, let alone the rest of the world, consider you to be SYSTEMATICALLY untrustworthy, dishonest, and evil? (This, even putting aside that most people around the world now better understand that YOUR core mandate is to perpetuate and expand a global imperialist, racist, social and legal re-engineering project, let alone your domestic programme.)
        
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        Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        Did you forget your meds this morning?
        
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        Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
        
        I’m completely of sound mind, unlike your president.
        
        Mine were also sincere, valid questions, you discredited American fuckwit.
        
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        Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        I can’t judge your sincerity, but the idea that the Democratic Party would be a plausible defendant in a RICO case, or is a totalitarian imperialist cult, does not deserve a serious reply. If you actually believe that to be true you need help.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        The Democratic Party is a big, sloppy, multiracial, multicultural political party filled with people who are at cross-purposes because they are guided by personal ambition and those at cross-purposes because they have different ideas on doing the right thing. IOW like pretty much any political party in a big-nation democracy. The Republican Party is now a Trump personality cult.
        
        Ilya Snowman 21 hours ago
        
        Most of the world obviously has no idea what a RICO case even is—including lawyers from the world’s sundry jurisdictions.
        
        Even so, were you to explain the idea to them, including and especially to the lawyers, a great many would see why such a case would be entirely fitting. Yours is a criminal corporate enterprise. (The DNC is a 527 org, right?)
        
        Congratulations on completely discrediting yourselves with the Biden coverup, by the way. Your international reputation is permanently and irreparably damaged.
    2. Michael P 2 days ago
      
      It was clear to a lot of us that his mental issues were already present during the 2020 election season. Democrats refused to acknowledge them because OrangeManBad.
      
      On a related topic, what is Harris’s excuse for running a basement campaign and refusing to interact in any meaningful way with the media or general public?
      
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      1. Krychek_2 2 days ago
        
        You just keep telling yourself that.
        
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      2. Malika 2 days ago
        
        It’s reasonable to criticize a lack of meaningful interaction with the media, but calling someone who is doing rallies so well attended they are making the Trump campaign upset being engaged in a “basement campaign” is hilarious.
        
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      3. Sarcastr0 2 days ago
        
        So by now you’d think you’d realize this conspiracy coverup thing isn’t playing. First, there isn’t much establishing any actions other than saying the President was fine.
        
        And you can insist everyone knew he wasn’t fine, but if your only source is the right wing fever swamps…suffice to say that plenty of utterly untrue things have been ‘clear to a lot of us.’
        
        Vince Foster. Birtherism. Scalia being assassinated. Roberts being blackmailed. Pelosi being a drunk.
        And of course secret Marxists. Secret Marxists everywhere.
        
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        Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
        
        ‘So by now you’d think you’d realize this conspiracy coverup thing isn’t playing’.
        
        Because you say so??? Do you know what most of the world ACTUALLY thinks about this? No one needs American ‘fever swamps’ to state this, by the by.
        
        Do you know what my PM thinks about this?
        
        Get your head OUT OF YOUR ASS, you evil piece of shit.
        
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      4. David Nieporent 2 days ago
        
        It was clear to a lot of us that his mental issues were already present during the 2020 election season.
        
        You. Are. Lying. Which is why there are no examples ever shown of that during the 2020 election season. You can see scores of interviews, appearances, and of course presidential debates with Trump in 2020, and Biden did fine in all of them.
        
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        Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf 2 days ago
        
        You. Are. Unobservant.By.Choice.
        
        There are plenty of videos from throughout his career, and anyone who could not see the change from 2016 to 2020 had their eyes closed and ears covered. He’s worse now, but it was already evident in 2020.
        
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        Sarcastr0 2 days ago
        
        The videos were all 10 second clips that count for nothing.
        
        You can do all the over the TV diagnosis that happens to align with your priors.
        But when you insist veryone go along with you, that’s not going to play.
        
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    3. David Nieporent 2 days ago
      
      And while that is far from laudable, imagine how the GOP would have acted had the shoe been on the other foot once the problems became apparent.
      
      I am unclear why you are phrasing this as a hypothetical. We know how the GOP did act when the shoe was on the other foot once the problems became apparent.
      
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      1. bernard11 2 days ago
        
        “how the GOP is acting” with the shoe on the other foot.
        
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    4. Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
      
      Blow it out your ass, American liar.
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqiOeiG4VNo
      
      Your executive branch, your intelligence agencies, and your corporate media have known about this for some time AND covered it up.
      
      You’re widely seen across the world now to be evil. You’re the totalitarian bad guys, not the Trumpians. You’ll NEVER recover from this reputational damage across the globe.
      
      So quit your posturing. (You can only do so here in front of your fellow Americans, to Trumpian red teamers, BECAUSE you can’t save face vis-a-vis the rest of the world.)
      
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      1. Malika 2 days ago
        
        “Blow it out your ass, American liar.”
        
        What country are you from?
        
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    5. Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf 2 days ago
      
      Videos are available of him talking throughout his career. Only a true blue believer could fail to see how much he had deteriorated by 2020, compared to just four years before.
      
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      1. Sarcastr0 2 days ago
        
        Calling *DMN* a Biden true believer is not the way.
        
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      2. David Nieporent 2 days ago
        
        The ones from 2020 do not show any deterioration. He’s strong, vibrant, quick, and alert. I’m sure he’s not as strong, vibrant, quick, or alert as he was when he was 30 years old — nobody on the planet is — but they look fine. The recent ones look like night-and-day compared to the ones from 2020.
        
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    6. Frank Drackman 2 days ago
      
      This says way more about your mental state than Parkinsonian Joes, or do you commonly use the term “Dog Faced Pony Soldiers”?
      
      Frank
      
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    7. Dr. Ed 2 1 day ago
      
      Ever see a Trump rally?
      
      If he’d had gone the way of Coma Joe, it would have been instantly noticeable. And Biden only got nudged aside after the disaster of the debate. That HAD to be known before that.
      
      Although Brandon circa 2020 was not the Brandon of 1988. Go look at some of his speeches from that era and you can not help but notice the difference.
      
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  2. Malika 2 days ago
    
    There’s one major party sticking with running a senile man to be president….
    
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    1. Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
      
      Kamala identifies as a man now…?
      
      Will that help or hinder its chances with American blue team totalitarians?
      
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    2. Dr. Ed 2 1 day ago
      
      Heels Up’s explanation of cloud computing is scary….
      
      Can she REALLY be that stupid?!?
      
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  3. Sarcastr0 2 days ago
    
    Nice change of subject. The unsourced allegation against Harris is good catnip.
    
    Anything about Nixon or just wanted to talk about other things?
    
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    1. Frank Drackman 2 days ago
      
      Nixon ended a war. Who was the last DemoKKKrat who did?
      Ok besides Hairy Truman
      
      Frank
      
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      1. Dr. Ed 2 1 day ago
        
        Don’t forget that Truman also started one.
        
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3. captcrisis 2 days ago
  
  What Trump did with the firing of Comey was worse than what Nixon did on the “smoking gun” tape. Every single Republican on the Rodino committee reversed their votes when the tape came out and voted for impeachment. No Republican was in favor of impeaching Trump.
  
  Also if Trump v. United States had been in effect then, no pardon by Ford would have been necessary because Nixon would have “absolute immunity” for his Watergate acts.
  
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  1. Michael P 2 days ago
    
    Comey deserved to be fired. The FBI mishandled multiple investigations with national significance, leaked information for partisan purposes, and did essentially nothing to the wrongdoers in those cases. That was all on his watch. (More recently, the Harris-Biden administration gave two of those wrongdoers $2M in rewards.)
    
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    1. captcrisis 2 days ago
      
      That’s not the reason Trump gave. He said he did it to stop the Russia investigation.
      
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      1. Michael P 2 days ago
        
        That was one of the mishandled investigations with partisan leakage that I mentioned.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        Trump proudly admitted that his campaign tried to collude with the Russian government and thought they were colluding (the Trump Tower meeting, Trump’s advance announcement promising dirt on Hillary Clinton). They were simply too stupid to realize they were getting played by non-governmental Russians. If it was an actual Putin agent, they of course would have had no compunction about following up.
        
        If anything even the Mueller investigation was too timid. He refused to pursue things up to Trump himself, and at the hearing seemed unfamiliar with parts of his own report.
        
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        Michael Ejercito 2 days ago
        
        If anything even the Mueller investigation was too timid. He refused to pursue things up to Trump himself, and at the hearing seemed unfamiliar with parts of his own report.
        
        The most charitable thing I would write about Mueller is that he was a senile patsy who was a figurehead for some hyper-partisan prosecutors.
        
        The whole reasaon for the investigation was a sham.
        
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        Malika 2 days ago
        
        Mueller was a lifelong GOP appointee.
        
        The amazing asymmetry in US politics now is that if a Democratic hack had been appointed to oversee the investigation of a GOP President, there would have been caterwauling on the Right, but if there were a GOP hack appointed to oversee the investigation of a GOP President….the Right still finds cause for caterwauling!
        
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        JasonT20 2 days ago
        
        …but if there were a GOP hack appointed to oversee the investigation of a GOP President….the Right still finds cause for caterwauling!
        
        I don’t know about Mueller being a “hack” of any type. But your point is certainly correct otherwise. Whenever I ask someone close to me about how Republicans in positions to investigate election fraud or other things Trumpworld cares about haven’t come up with the goods, GOP or even Trump appointed judges rule against them, and such, the response I always get is about they must have been “compromised” or “captured” by the Democrats (or Chinese or “them”) somehow.
        
        It is almost as if they are starting from the premise that any evidence against Trump or Trump-aligned Republicans must be fake news spread by the left.
        
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        David Nieporent 2 days ago
        
        The whole reasaon for the investigation was a sham.
        
        So you think George Papadopoulos didn’t drunkenly brag to an Australian diplomat that the Russians were offering dirt on Hillary?
        
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        JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago
        
        He “pursued” things to some extent but was an inferior officer in the Justice Department & there was just so much he could do. He also could have spent years pointlessly trying to sue Trump to get information but decided it was not worth it.
        
        Also, whoever decided to make Mueller a witness screwed up.
        
        Democrats in various cases did a good job setting up hearings, including more than one witness in the first Trump House impeachment hearings. They made a mistake there.
        
        Judge Michael Luttig also was a witness in a separate hearing that required some careful attention. Some were thrown off by his deliberate speaking style. But, he wasn’t as central as Mueller and ultimately was worth bringing in.
        
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        JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago
        
        To be careful, I don’t fully know what went into the decision to have Mueller testify. Would Republicans otherwise cry foul and call the whole thing a con job? Was something else involved? I don’t know.
        
        But, he didn’t look comfortable testifying (why would he? why would it be his forte?) & it would have been better if they could have brought the information in some other way.
        
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        Frank Drackman 2 days ago
        
        who taught you Collusion Law?
        Professor Suggen DeezNutz?
        
        Frank
        
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      2. Michael Ejercito 2 days ago
        
        Which he had every legal right and ethical duty to do.
        
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  2. Michael Ejercito 2 days ago
    
    What Trump did with the firing of Comey was worse than what Nixon did on the “smoking gun” tape.
    No, it was not.
    
    Trump was right, as a matter of law and a matter of ethics, to fire Comey.
    
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    1. CJColucci 2 days ago
      
      There were good reasons to fire Comey and Trump’s reasons to fire Comey. Not much overlap.
      
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      1. defaultdotxbe 2 days ago
        
        Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is better than doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
        
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        CJColucci 1 day ago
        
        Are you sure about that? Or is it more likely that a person who consistently does things for the right reasons can be expected to do the right thing more of the time than a person who consistently does things for wrong reasons? Which would you rely on? The consistent one or the lucky one?
        
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    2. Krychek_2 2 days ago
      
      I really don’t understand why Republicans dislike Comey since it was his letter two weeks before the election that probably got Trump elected.
      
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      1. captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        Also his blistering condemnation of Hillary Clinton in July 2016 — in the process of announcing he had decided not to refer her for prosecution.
        
        It was very unusual to make such a statement, when one is not prosecuting. Why Comey did it is easy to figure out. He, along with most people, was assuming that Hillary would be President with a Republican Senate, with a ratcheting up of the endless Hillary investigations now that she was President. Comey was trying to protect the FBI from accusations of protecting her, while also being ethical in refusing to hand her over for a meritless prosecution.
        
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        Brett Bellmore 2 days ago
        
        He was tasked with whitewashing Hillary’s criminal conduct after Lynch got caught holding that secret meeting with Bill. Only he was neither dishonest enough to properly carry out that task, nor honest enough to recommend prosecution and let Lynch take the heat for letting her skate.
        
        So he let her skate while making it clear that, yeah, she was guilty as hell. And pleased nobody.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        Odd that not even Trump’s Justice Department, ordered to find something on her, could do it. And they looked at a lot more than the email situation.
        
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        bernard11 2 days ago
        
        Yup. Another conspiracy unmasked by Our Brett.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        When he says “that secret meeting with Lynch” is he talking about that chance meeting on the tarmac, in full view of everyone, apparently exchanging a few pleasantries? Or was someone recording it so that we would know the actual nature of the conversation?
        
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        David Nieporent 2 days ago
        
        Yes, Brett, the “secret meeting” that everyone was aware of because they cleverly arranged to meet up in an ~~obscure abandoned building on the outskirts of town~~ airport tarmac.
        
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        captcrisis 2 days ago
        
        Is Brett saying that a President can’t talk to his own Attorney General, on any topic?
        
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        David Nieporent 1 day ago
        
        No, he’s saying that a former president can’t talk to an attorney general of a president of the same party.
        
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      2. JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago
        
        He did his job. He was disposable.
        
        Once Trump was elected, Republicans wanted Comey to be totally loyal, and to agree to follow Trump’s commands. Publicly say that Trump would not be subject of an investigation.
        
        Comey didn’t want to do that. As captcrisis’s reply notes, Comey acted with the goal of defending his turf. The first time around, that helped Trump. The second time around, not quite so.
        
        Refusing to follow the will of Dear Leader is going to get some Republican hate.
        
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  3. Dr. Ed 2 1 day ago
    
    Nixon should have burned the tapes.
    
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4. JasonT20 2 days ago
  
  The lesson Republicans took is “never again.”
  
  I think the lesson Tucker Carlson took from that is how it was really the CIA that set Nixon up.
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. Ilya Snowman 2 days ago
    
    Woodward worked for a major American corporate media organisation.
    
    So of course he wasn’t a real journalist.
    
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    1. JasonT20 2 days ago
      
      Woodward worked for a major American corporate media organisation.
      So of course he wasn’t a real journalist.
      
      Tucker Carlson worked for “major American corporate media organisation[s]” for almost all of his career. But that is not the reason why he isn’t a real journalist.
      
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      1. Ilya Snowman 21 hours ago
        
        Do you think I care about, or respect, any of your big-name American journalists, including Tucker?
        
        Like most of the world, do you think I trust any of your country’s journalists?
        
        Get your head out of your ass.
        
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    2. David Nieporent 2 days ago
      
      Horseshoe theory strikes again, with the MAGA right adopting the language of the tankie left in talking about “corporate media.” (It’s not clear why limited liability partnership media or sole proprietorship media would be preferable, though. Of course, the Putin fans on the left and right like state-controlled media; RT is more their style.)
      
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      1. Ilya Snowman 20 hours ago
        
        Admit that you didn’t even know the term ‘tankie’ till I taught it to you, David.
        
        Your ‘centre’ is controlled and untrustworthy. Most of the world sees that clearly. Somehow, the left and right agreeing on this is problematic? How?
        
        (Do those forms really exhaust the options, David?)
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        David Nieporent 19 hours ago
        
        1. Civilized people spell the word “center.”
        
        2. None of the world sees things as you do. You’re a deranged lunatic ranting about the lizard people, Irish, Slavs, Illuminati and Mohammedans. In the open thread you’ve got a People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front debate going with JHBHBE about which flavor of insanity better explains Xenu’s plan for the earth.
        
        3. And while there are many things I didn’t know until you said them, that’s because all of those things are false. (Although “false” is a completely inadequate word to characterize your brand of derangement.) I don’t know whether you’ve ever used the word ‘tankie’ here before, but if so it was decades after I learned it.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        Ilya Snowman 18 hours ago
        
        Civilised people do no such thing. They also understand that full stops end sentences, not quotation marks. After all, you’re not quoting the punctuation mark.
        
        You know nothing about the rest of the world, David, as you’ve demonstrated time and again. And if you thought you could address the merits of what I’d said, you wouldn’t have bothered to throw in Lizard people or Illuminati nonsense. (You only offer cheap, bald assertions because you CANNOT do better; after all, you don’t KNOW any better.)
        
        Relatedly, if the propositions were false, then you didn’t and don’t KNOW them, yeah?
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        David Nieporent 18 hours ago
        
        “Address the merits of my lunacy!”, yells lunatic.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        Ilya Snowman 18 hours ago
        
        From Marx’s notion of ‘false consciousness’ unto today, leftist Jewish pigs such as yourself have utilised pseudo-psychological tactics to avoid engaging in normative evaluation and addressing the merits.
        
        The cat is out of the bag, Jew. Your tactic won’t work with me.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        David Nieporent 18 hours ago
        
        QED.
        
        Ilya Snowman 18 hours ago
        
        The irony of you presenting an initialism that used in association with a logical argument, with the conclusion of a proof, is delicious.
        
        Not that you understand irony (or what begging the question is).
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        David Nieporent 17 hours ago
        
        You’re a legend in your own mind.
  2. Frank Drackman 2 days ago
    
    Sort of suspicious that the bumbling team of wiretappers were all FBI/CIA, when Gordon Liddy is the most competent of the bunch you’re in trouble. (I kid the “G-man”! Loved his book, TV Movie(with Robert Conrad in title role)Radio Show, Cameos on Miami Vice, Debate with Moon Unit Zappa, but a competent burglar he wasn’t
    
    Frank
    
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5. Krayt 2 days ago
  
  Nixon was a good example of the proper use of impeachment. Something so bad even his supporters say he has to go.
  
  Compare vs. three since then. Hint to kibitzers: screetching that satisfies you does not count as you are a detractor already.
  
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JasonT20 2 days ago

Nixon was a good example of the proper use of impeachment. Something so bad even his supporters say he has to go.

By that standard, a President could do the most horrible things that you could imagine, but if his supporters disagree and want him to stay in office, then impeachment was improper. Your framing only works if you assume that the majority of a President’s supporters are going to evaluate evidence and the seriousness of the charges against the President as objectively as anyone could ask them to.

Whether or not that this has ever been true for any popular political figure in the U.S. over the last century, it is certainly not even close to being true now.

Hint to kibitzers: screetching that satisfies you does not count as you are a detractor already.

I don’t get what you’re trying to say with this. “screetching that satisfies you…” What is “that” pointing to? “…you are a detractor already.” Detractor of what?

[edit: reply to Krayt. I’m not going to try and move it. Last time I did that, it just made it worse. Seems to me like this is just a flaw in the comment system. When you hit ‘reply’ to the last message in the list, it still treats it as a new comment rather than nesting it where you wanted it.]

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1. Krayt 1 day ago
  
  Absolutely wrong. In three of the four, detractors pounded the drum to try to stir up a critical mass to git their political opponent out, feigning oh my goddddd!!!!
  
  In one of the four, sufficient evidence came out that everyone agreed with. In the other three, just hyperbolists and hyperventillists trying to git a political opponent.
  
  Your concerns are unfounded. There are only a few data points, but apparently this power is deliberately abused 3/4 of the time! 1/4 of the time legitimately, and 0/4 of the time for hyperpartisans to deliberately ignore major crimes!
  
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  1. JasonT20 1 day ago
    
    In one of the four, sufficient evidence came out that everyone agreed with.
    
    Not quite. My recollection is that Democrats didn’t really dispute the evidence against Bill Clinton (maybe they did on the obstruction charges). They mostly disputed that there was sufficient cause to warrant removal. If you meant “sufficient evidence” to warrant removal, then it is definitely true that not everyone agreed with it in 3 of the 4 cases. But that is a trivial assertion, given that the President was not removed in any of those three cases.
    
    It should also be noted that a majority of the Senate voted to convict Trump in the 2nd impeachment, with 7 Republican Senators joining all the Democrats and the Democrat-aligned independents to make the vote 57-43. Thus, some Republican Senators agreed that the evidence warranted removal, just not enough to make that happen.
    
    …and 0/4 of the time for hyperpartisans to deliberately ignore major crimes!
    
    Is perjury not a major crime? If it is, then a lot of Democrats ignored that in 1998. Is withholding congressionally passed aid to a friendly foreign nation (arguably an ally of the moment and circumstance, though not by treaty) in order to pressure its president to announce that his country would investigate his likely opponent for reelection not a crime? Is trying to whip up supporters to violently prevent Congress from certifying his opponent’s victory not a major crime? Remember that even some of the Senators that voted not to convict Trump in the 2nd impeachment still said that he was “responsible” for the violence on Jan. 6. McConnell, in particular, justified his no vote as it not being constitutional to impeach a president after he left office. (Which was rich given that he refused to allow any action on the impeachment articles passed on Jan. 13 prior to Biden’s inauguration.) So it really does seem like some Senators, at least, ignored what they viewed as a crime by voting no.
    
    Hyperpartisanship played a role in every impeachment in U.S. history except for Nixon’s. There is dispute over which side was acting hyperpartisan, but no disputing that hyperpartisanship is what determined 3 of the 4 modern impeachment outcomes.
    
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2. Krayt 1 day ago
  
  If you have a submission problem, the system is too dumb to put your edit box back responding to the message you (tried) to create it under. It just gets put as a generic top level reply at the bottom. It neither informs you of this or makes it obvious.
  
  Log in to Reply
JoeFromtheBronx 2 days ago

Missouri v. New York, decided today …

Missouri’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied. Thomas and Alito would (following their previous practice) grant the bill but no other relief.

Missouri sought a stay of New York’s gag order and impending sentence against Trump during the 2024 Presidential election season “so Missourians could participate in the election free from New York’s exercise of coercive power limiting the ability of Trump to campaign.”

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1. captcrisis 2 days ago
  
  Thanks. I’ll put that in next year’s edition.
  
  Log in to Reply
2. David Nieporent 2 days ago
  
  It was a batshit (proposed) suit, pretty much equally as frivolous as the attempt by Texas to sue Pennsylvania over the 2020 election.
  
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  1. Noscitur a sociis 2 days ago
    
    The claims are indeed nuts. I do, however, agree with Thomas and Alito on the court’s practice of deciding that it has discretion to refuse to hear cases within its exclusive original jurisdiction.
    
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    1. captcrisis 2 days ago
      
      I don’t know of any situation where a court with original jurisdiction can refuse to hear a case. You pay the filing fee and file and serve the Complaint. What then? There is nothing to bring the case to the court’s attention until someone makes a motion. At the earliest, defendant moves to dismiss based on lack of jurisdiction. The court might grant the motion, but it’s not refusing to hear the case and it doesn’t have the power to dismiss the Complaint before a motion is made, and it doesn’t have the power to simply refuse to rule on the motion to dismiss.
      
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      1. Noscitur a sociis 2 days ago
        
        The Supreme Court has (exclusive) original jurisdiction suits between two different states. 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a). I agree that that should mean that a state can file a complaint against another state in the Supreme Court, which would then have to adjudicate it (which, in turn, could end up meaning dismissing it for various procedural or substantive reasons). Accord Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 404 (1821) (“We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the constitution.”).
        
        However, in Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp., 401 U.S. 493 (1971) and Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. 91 (1972), the Supreme Court decided that this principle didn’t actually apply to it, and that it could decide not to let cases in its original jurisdiction be filed if it didn’t feel like hearing them. (It confirmed that that applies to suits between two states in Arizona v. New Mexico, 425 U.S. 794 (1976).) That is the principle that the court relied on in rejecting this (again, very stupid) case, and the position that Thomas and Alito are—quite rightly, in my view—trying to push back against.
        
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        JoeFromtheBronx 1 day ago
        
        Ohio v. Wyandotte Chemicals Corp. was written by Justice Harlan, who cited Cohens. He sets forth a rule when it is proper to not apply it. It was a bit more than “we don’t feel like it.”
        
        One reason raised by the Supreme Court when not taking a case in this area is the possibility of an alternative forum. New York argued that applies here as well.
        
        I’m open to the Alito/Thomas approach though given their votes here, it is unclear how much value it would be to the plaintiffs in a given case anyhow.
        
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      2. John F. Carr 19 hours ago
        
        A federal District Court may sua sponte dismiss a case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. This is not quite the same as refusing to accept the case for filing.
        
        The named defendant in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson was a Texas judge threatened with a federal court order not to hear certain types of cases. His clerk would not be allowed to accept such cases for filing.
        
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Frank Drackman 1 day ago

OK you Homos guess it’s up to me to make the case for my man Milhouse(some had FDR, Ike, LBJ as POTUS’s during their formative years, I had Milhouse, the TBI Posterchild Jerry Ford, and Methusela I mean Jimmuh Cartuh as far as I know the only POTUS to apologize to his neighbor for killing his Cat( he was eating Birds)
So Milhouse appointed the 3 Surpremes responsible for the US having some 100 million fewer:lesser Afro Amuricans, Ended the Vietnam War, allowed Amuricans to own Gold(how was there not an Insurrection when private ownership of Gold was outlawed? Maybe take my AR-15(mine are Olympic arms and a factory (Legal) M16A1, but my 1991 Wiener Philharmonic? from my dead cold fingers! Actually in a safe deposit box, you know I probably own more gold coins as a hobby than most of your rubes net worth
First POTUS to preside over the EPA, ended the Draft, and you enjoy your women’s College Sports funded by poorly Ed-Jew-ma-cared minorities who incur TBI:CTE at astronomically high rates?
Well thank Title IX, that Parkinsonian Joe is destroying if he even knew what decade he was in
Oh? And “Spirit of 76” is a much cooler name than “Air Farce 1”

Frank

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1. Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland 1 day ago
  
  What kind of asshole associates with a blog that spews bigotry incessantly?
  
  No need to guess. These bigot-hugging dipshitsself-identify.
  
  Carry on, clingers. So far as your stale, disgusting, right-wing thinking could carry anyone in modern, improving-against-your-wishes America.
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. Frank Drackman 1 day ago
    
    OK, the whole RFK/Dead Bear Cub thing is sort of creepy, (He’s already got a Brain Tapeworm and he’s going to eat undercooked Bear?)
    But Jimmuh Cartuh is the only POTUS who shot a neighbors Cat (for eating Birds, what next? shoot Sharks for eating People?) and actually wrote a note apologizing, which says all you need to know about why Jimmuh Cartuh was an even worse POTUS than Warren Gameleg Harding or Patrick Buchannan,
    and sorry that Gold comment obviously struck such a nerve, not my fault you haven’t learned the “A”‘s of Success in the Professions,
    A-vailability, “Can I work on Yom Kippur? did Buchenwald take Yom Kippur off? OK that can be taken the wrong way, did Israel fight on Yom Kippur? – A-daptability “Yes, I can check the “F” box for Mr. Smith’s Radical Prostatectomy A-bility: “No, I’m not a Bored Certified “Intensivist” do you want me to put the Endotracheal Tube back in”
    and “A-ffability” You think I’m not “Affable”? Well Jerry, I’ve known Affable, I served with Affable, and you’re about as Affable as a Prostrate Biopsy done with a dull rusty needle (ouch!)
    
    Frank
    
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