This is the country we thought we lived in, but we were being played by Republicans for years [video at link]:

Republican Voters Against Trump
@AccountableGOP

My now deceased friend said the same thing about Nazi Germany:

Shouan Zhoobin Riahi
@abogadojuanito
One thing that my parents, who lived through the collapse of the Shah's regime, always told me is that they were surprised with the speed and ferocity with which it happened. Things that seemed impossible one day were simply happening the next.

Angry Staffer
@Angry_Staffer

If you're covering Biden's age issues without also acknowledging that Trump fell asleep and drooled on himself *every day* he was in court--or that he often didn't start working until noon when he was in the White House--you aren't being honest with the American people.

If you want to know where Daddy Trump is in these Files, MeidasTouch goes over it here:
www.youtube.com

Re-uppping:

Ben Meiselas
@meiselasb

Trump's name appears over and over again on Jeffrey Epstein's message logs in the grand jury docs released this week. It is also undisputed: Trump's name appears 7 times on Epstein's private jet flight logs, that Epstein flew on Trump's jet with a young girl of indeterminate age, girls who Epstein trafficked worked at Mar-A-Lago, a girl Epstein trafficked mentioned visiting Trump's casino in a recently released deposition transcript,Trump said Epstein is a great guy who likes girls on the younger side, Trump frequently "partied" with Epstein, Trump wished Ghislaine Maxwell well at her criminal trial, and someone who testified under the pseudonym JANE DOE at the Ghislaine Maxwell criminal trial stated that she was introduced to Trump by Epstein when she was 14 years old. We report on it here with all receipts

FTA:

Mellon was already the largest donor after donating $25 million each to the Super PACs supporting the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump (MAGA Inc.) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (American Values 2024). Then, Mellon donated another $50 million to MAGA Inc. on May 31, the day after Trump was convicted of committing 34 felonies.

Despite his political spending, little is known about Mellon. The most detailed account of Mellon's views comes from his self-published 2015 autobiography. "This book was not ghost-written: every single word is my own," Mellon said in a press release announcing its publication.

According to a 2020 article published in the Washington Post, Mellon writes that Black people have become "even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations" after social safety net programs were expanded in the 1960s and 1970s. Mellon writes that they are now "slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam."

Mellon also derided programs intended to lift people out of poverty as "Slavery Redux." Mellon claimed that in exchange for "delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on." According to Mellon, who inherited his fortune, "[t]he largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass."

Mellon also blasted universities for offering college students the opportunity to learn about the history of Black people, women, and the LGBTQ community. "Black Studies, Women's Studies, LGBT Studies, they have all cluttered Higher Education with a mishmash of meaningless tripe designed to brainwash gullible young adults into going along with the Dependency Syndrome," Mellon wrote.

Donald Trump's alleged sexual proclivities' graphically detailed in new Epstein documents

FTA:

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast how the Supreme Court ruling on immunity--which largely shields former presidents from criminal prosecutions for actions in office--should encourage conservatives.

"In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back. No one in the audience should be despairing," Roberts said, adding, "And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail."

"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," he added later. . . .

Robert's Heritage Foundation is the moving force behind Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a possible Trump reelection in November. The nearly 1,000-page handbook is aimed at advancing right-wing policies and expanding the powers of the presidency.

Authors describe Project 2025 as a guide of what the next president needs to do to undo the "damage" to America they argue is caused by liberal politicians. Critics of Project 2025 call it authoritarian and "un-American."

IF you think the Supreme Court won't rule in a way that screws Democrats when the case(s) end up on their doorstep, you are nuts:

Heritage Foundation working on election legal challenges in case Biden pulled from DNC nomination

#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.