#8 if there was a sarcasm emoji on this site I would have used it with my #4 post. Sorry you didn't catch my intent.

#8 Earthmuse, I was channeling right-wingers who for years blamed everything and anything on Obama. I voted for Obama twice and don't regret it.

Trump has threatened these SC judges, or promised them something, or both.
#9 | POSTED BY ZED

If nothing else, I think what he has promised them is to carry out the Project 2025 plan. They really don't care if America becomes a fascist nation as long as it is a Christo-fascist one. It has become aboundantly clear they have only been paying lipservice to democracy.

Joyce Alene
@JoyceWhiteVance
Here's the deal: none of this happens in a vacuum. We have to look at Project 2025, Dobbs, Loper Bright, yesterday's immunity decision & Trump's onslaught of authoritarian plans like the one below all together. That's the future we get if he returns to office.

Steve Benen
@stevebenen
In light of the Trump v. U.S. ruling, perhaps we should be chatting a bit more about the Republican's eagerness to amplify messages about "treason" and "military tribunals" for his perceived political foes?

If it isn't Hillary's fault, then it most certainly is Obama's fault.

In the long term this ruling isn't good for democracy no matter who the president . In the short term it won't be good for the Democratic party if Trump gets re-elelcted, but it also won't be good for the Republican party, a fact that many high-fiving conservatives seem to be overlooking. A President Trump won't be limited to going after his political opponents in the Democratic party. He will be able to go after his opponents in the Republican party, the media and the business community as well. Anyone who questions him in anyway can become a target of some punitive "official action" on Trump's part. Not that there is much of it going on right now anyway, but I don't see how robust debates within the Republican party will be possible. It will truly be Trump's way or the highway from now on. That's what it means to have a president who is above the law and who is now a king aka a dictator by default. Killing democracy as well as your own party is a very short-sighted, dangerous and destructive way to own the libs.

Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson
My favorite part will be when the Republicans loving the SCOTUS immunity decision cross Trump in some minor way and suddenly Find Out.

Hell's Bells
@ArleneRabenbau1
That's bound to happen. Everyone in Trump's orbit eventually winds up under a bus.

Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson

It's almost as if--and stop me if you've heard this one--everything Trump touches dies.

Helluva of a ruling a few days before the 4th of July:

We are not the country today that we were before July 1, 2024. Many of the national institutions in which we took greatest pride now lie in smoldering ruins. Somehow nearly 250 years of American history have been wiped away in the blinking of an eye. Long ago, the country's founders risked everything to shrug off the yoke of a king, to enter into a civic experiment in which no person would be above the law. We so venerated the idea, that on the pediment of our highest court, we had etched the words "Equal Justice Under Law."

The future is indeed bleak:

Asha Rangappa
@AshaRangappa_
I don't really see how the Court is protecting former presidents from rogue prosecutions. A sitting president could use his officials to fabricate evidence against a former president, ostensibly for "nonofficial" crimes -- and there would be no way to show that the sitting president was making it up because it would all be "official." This whole thing is so dumb and is designed literally to protect one person.
12:13 PM Jul 1, 2024

Asha Rangappa
@AshaRangappa_
According to the Court, a President could literally provide the leader of a hostile adversary with intelligence needed to win a conflict in which we are involved, or even attack or invade the U.S., and not be prosecuted for treason, because negotiating with heads of state is an exclusive Art. II function. In case you were wondering.
12:54 PM Jul 1, 2024

Asha Rangappa
@AshaRangappa_
The Court has handed Trump, if he wins this November, carte blanche to be a "dictator on day one," and the ability to use every lever of official power at his disposal for his personal ends without any recourse.

This election is now a clear-cut decision between democracy and autocracy. Vote accordingly.
10:49 AM Jul 1, 2024

"if the president does it, it's legal." Future presidencies can now be President Nixon on steriods.

Republicans should be troubled by this ruling because a President Trump can target anyone who opposed him in anyway, Democrat or Republican. For example, Pence, Christie, Haley, DeSantis--anyone who ran against him, opposed or disappointed him can now become the object of Trump's promised retribtion should he become president again.

No, these rules will only apply to Republican presidents:

emptywheel
@emptywheel
Mike Johnson pretends not to understand that even if Biden's DOJ had been weaponized, John Roberts just gave sanction to that.

Quote
Scott MacFarlane
@MacFarlaneNews
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La): "Today's ruling by the Court is a victory for former President Trump and all future presidents, and another defeat for President Biden's weaponized Department of Justice and Jack Smith"

So now a US president can be like Putin who imprisoned and killed his political opponent Alexei Navalny and no one will be able to hold him accountable? This ruling is truly Donald Trump's wet dream of what it means to be POTUS.

"A democracy if you can keep it." We couldn't:

@judgeluttig
@judgeluttig
It can never again be said that in America "no man is above the law." The Supreme Court held today that the President of the United States " and the former president in particular " is above the law, and the only person in America who is above the law.
2:02 PM Jul 1, 2024

Letters from an American

At the end of the evening, pundits were calling not for Trump"a man liable for sexual assault and business fraud, convicted of 34 felonies, under three other indictments, who lied pathologically"to step down, but for Biden to step down ... because he looked and sounded old. At 81, Biden is indeed old, but that does not distinguish him much from Trump, who is 78 and whose inability to answer a question should raise concerns about his mental acuity.

Democrats aren't tough enough fighters, and they need to be:

Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson

Biden had a bad night.

Also, Trump is an existential threat to democracy, the Republic, the Constitution, and our most fundamental liberties, in addition to being a fraud, a liar, a felon, a degenerate, a global embarrassment, and an ally of evil.

Toughen up. Fight's on.

I hope Biden watches the debate at some point soon, gets mad at himself for the poor performance he turned in and then gets to work barnstorming the country. If he loves this country (which I think he does) and he recognizes the threat Trump is to democracy (which I also think he does), then he has his work cut out for him.

Biden had a first bad debate, just like Obama and Reagan before him when they ran for re-election. He improved as the debate went on. Like I said, he was over-prepared and in the wrong way. He should have just been himself. I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion:

Bob Cesca
@bobcesca_go
Watching Biden's rally. Where was this guy earlier?

Tom Nichols
@RadioFreeTom
I'd say I'm baffled, but again, I think I get it: The Biden in the debate was the one that had some young staffers drilling him about HBCU funding and climate targets, stuff no one was tuning into hear about.
The Biden later at the party was the guy who's running the country.

One of those undecided voters, a former Republican, put it this way: When he thought of voting for Trump, Hell no. When he thought of voting for Biden, Oh, no.

MSNBC interviewed 4 undecided voters, double haters as they are called, and they thought Democrats should replace Biden and Republicans should replace Trump. They saw Biden as a good enough guy but one who was floundering, and they saw Trump as someone who lied nonstop and who, instead of answering the questions, kept making everything about himself.

Biden was over-prepared and stuck on being presidential while Trump was a firehose of falsehoods who was basically giving his stump speech. I kept waiting for Scrappy Joe Scranton to show up. I kept waiting for Joe to get mad and fight fire with fire. He needed more heart, less head. More ad libs, less attempts at trying to remember facts and figures. Trump was just making up lie after lie, and Joe was struggling to keep up with him. If you have ever gotten into a fight with a narcissistic liar, you know how frustrating it is to try to argue on their terms. You'll never win and just end up feeling crazy. You have to be yourself, hold your ground and argue on your own terms. Joe should have just been himself and let Trump have it. Or he should have just ignored Trump entirely and straightforwardly answered the questions that were put to him. Trying to do some sort of hybrid response ineffective and impossible given the 2 minute and 1 minute response times.

Yep:

Christopher Thomas
@cht_mgmtprof
His prep team failed horribly. Trying to have him recall specific numbers and policy points does not work to his advantage. He stumbles searching for the precise thing he was coached on, while Trump spews lies and projection but looks strong doing it. Biden needed more one-liners

Corky, even bidens daughter said the showers were inappropriate. She SAID that.
#452 | POSTED BY BOAZ

Actually what she wrote was: "showers with my dad (probably not appropriate)."

She also wrote: "Repeatedly, I hear others grossly misinterpret my once-private writings and lob false accusations that defame my character and those of the people I love."

Democrats are bed-wetting idiots, who need to think like current (no matter what Trump does, they double down on him) and former Republicans like this guy:

Stuart Stevens
@stuartpstevens
I was in the room when the political class wrote that Kerry had won the race after the first Bush debate. I was in the room when the political class wrote that Obama had lost the race after the first debate.

Politics doesn't work that way. There may be a more unappealing quality than panic, but I'll be dammed if I can name it.

Stuart Stevens
@stuartpstevens
I know for some of the Obama inner circle, there will never be another love like that great and pure love of that magic moment in 2008. Everybody else will be like the fourth spouse.

But for Christ sake, show a little character and fight for your guy.

Stuart Stevens
@stuartpstevens

To my Dem friends. Be this guy.

Mark Hamill
@MarkHamill

One off night doesn't change the fact that @JoeBiden is the most legislatively successful @POTUS in our lifetime. One off night also doesn't change the fact that the former guy is a convicted felon, serial liar & adjudicated rapist who is unfit for ANY office. Period.

Food for thought:

Stuart Stevens
@stuartpstevens

Don't day trade politics. It's a sucker's game. A guy from Queens out on bail bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade, said in public he didn't have sex with a porn star, defended tax cuts for billionaires, defended Jan. 6th. and called America the worst country in the world.
That guy isn't going to win this race.