President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Excellent point. I’ll clarify to say the new ruling, while might be short-lived, is the first time trump has faced a consequence and been held accountable for the piece of shit insurrectionist he is.

 

I actually think Kavanaugh might be the one…

BTW one of my partners was classmates with Gorsuch and can’t believe what a twit he’s become.

 

I'm of two minds on this. One, it's Colorado, which has become as blue as a state as it gets; two, it's Colorado, which sent Lauren Boebert to Washington.

I think Trumpers are nearing the point of diminishing returns where you can't excite more than 100% of their base. I think the speed of light has been achieved there. But by doing this, Colorado might have thrown itself back into play. We'll see.

 

I kinda think Kavanaugh, and maybe even Barrett (!!!), might wanna distance themselves from the shadow of Trump at some point and try to work from their own platforms from then on.

Pipe dream, yeah maybe, but if you're a Supreme, why not shake off the Satan Overlord at this point and follow your own path going forward?

 

Barrett Covid is gonna toe the party line.

 

There is the party line and then there is the Trump line. Where does that line lie? It twitches seemingly back and forth like the Mighty Mississippi between lower states, leaving oxbows that leave unfortunate folk stranded on the other side.

 

Are Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society still Trump loyalists, or have they decided that he is likely to be a loose cannon they cannot influence? That may be a factor with this court.

 

The old guard have cast their lot and will necessarily ride or die. They don't have a choice. Nor do they have anything to lose really.

 

Republican sheep now bleating about the Colorado case as "election interference."

Just like the perfect phone call to Raffensberger and Jan. 6, right motherf*ckers?

 

The federal question here is the application of the 14th Amendment, which ultimately is dispositive to the Colorado case. The Colorado Supreme Court did a good job of boxing them in so that their avenues for overturning it will be difficult. They're either going to have to buy the argument that the Section 5 of the 14th Amendment requires Congressional action for Section 3 to take effect, and that's missing here, or find that it's not applicable specifically to someone whose previous oath of office was as president. But the Colorado court spent time examining how SCOTUS has previously held that other sections of the 14th Amendment are self-executing and drawing a distinction from a district court case written by Justice Salmon Chase while he was riding the circuits, so it doesn't have stare decisis attached, on Section 3. The inapplicability to the president argument is circumspect, but there is room for a carve out there as other positions are specifically listed and to find it applicable to the president you have to find the position falls within "officer of the United States," which seems clear to anyone applying common sense.

I also thought it was interesting that they spent a lot of time going back to a Tenth Circuit opinion written by Justice Gorsuch when he was on that court. Honestly, it seemed like a bit of overkill to me and it didn't directly apply to the 14th Amendment arguments but rather to Colorado's ability to determine the eligibility of a candidate for president. In the previous case there was a challenge to a naturalized citizen who wanted to appear on the ballot, so they were dealing with Article 2 and not the 14th Amendment. But clearly they were using that case to try to box him in as well.

My view: SCOTUS can overturn it, and probably will, but that will require several conservative justices taking positions that you wouldn't typically expect a conservative to take related to statutory construction (though in this case its the constitution), plain language and original intent. There's also the wild card of a theory advocated by conservative constitutional lawyer James Bopp in the Madison Cawthorn cases that Congress's blanket immunity legislation in the 1880s was prospective and therefore makes Section 3 ineffective. The Fourth Circuit ultimately rejected that and it doesn't appear it was an issue in the Colorado case, but I could see SCOTUS grasping on to that if they want to rule in Trump's favor and find the other avenues to do that to be too unpalatable. They've got several avenues to do it, but it'll be a bitter pill to swallow to do it.