Nightwingdragon @ Nightwingdragon @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Oh absolutely.

But again, at the end of the day, the treaty is still a piece of paper, and the backing would only hold until the next megalomaniac rises to power, decides you're its next victim because fuck you that's why, and has the military might to back it up.

It's one of those weird paradoxes. If world leaders are sincerely interested in world peace, treaties are a formality that are barely even necessary. If our world leaders are the Donald Trumps and Vladmir Putins of the world, treaties are worthless pieces of paper.

it’s very obvious to any geopolitical actor worth their salt that the Memorandum is worth far less than the paper it’s written on.

This has always been the case. Treaties are worthless if your opponent has more military might than you and decides you're its next target because fuck you that's why. After what happened with Ukraine, no country is ever going to give up their nukes again.

So now we're sending out reminders like a high school history teacher reminding students that the history report is due tomorrow.

I'd also like to point out that Trump said he had trade deals waiting to be signed from over 200 other countries. I'd also like to point out that there are 195 countries on the planet, including the US. I'll let you do the math from there.

On July 8th, every other country should take the time to send Trump a copy of whatever new trade deals they've negotiated with other countries in response to Trump's tariffs.

For those who are not WWE fans, I would still recommend going back to the late 1990s and early 2000s and watch Linda McMahon's on-screen role in the company at the time. By all accounts, what she was like on-screen is what she was like off-screen: A completely wooden personality devoid of charisma, looking, sounding, and acting like a badly written AI reading off cue cards. Even when she was CEO of the company, her only actual duties were to just do whatever Vince told her to do while he used her as an example of how "progressive" he is for having a woman as CEO. By all accounts from interviews given by former wrestlers and employees, Vince called all the shots and made the decisions. All she ever did was sign her name.

Hmmm....she was put in a position she does not have the intelligence or qualifications for, for the sole purpose of blindly following the orders of a megalomaniac who was calling the shots backstage. Sound familiar?

She has about as much charisma as a department store mannequin, and about as much intelligence. It's always been this way.

In a scorching show open on ABC’s This Week, Stephanopoulos called out the Trumps for cashing in on the office — while noting that those who are filling the Trump family coffers are benefitting from “official actions” taken by the White House.

"Official Actions". Two very important words, because thanks to the Supreme Court even a future Congress can't even investigate this, much less do anything about it. And forget about this congress lifting a god damned finger, outside of the middle one they keep giving to the people who voted for them.

It makes sense.

How do the clients know that these law firms aren't sending every bit of confidential information to the Trump administration, attorney/client privilege be damned? Even if they are breaking the law in the process, why would it matter? The Trump administration can just hand-wave that away. Even if the law firms don't want to turn over the information, what do you think they're going to do when Trump says "Hand it over or I've got another EO waiting on my desk to be signed."?

These law firms have been compromised, and no sane client should be retaining them.

Record the interaction and ask for badge numbers and names. Identify people individually if you can, psychology people say that people are more aware of their consequences of you remind them of themselves.

When on duty, most of them wear masks, drive in government cars, and respond to questions with telling you to fuck right off. And some states are passing laws making recording the police illegal.

For those who haven't read the article:

Trump offered Canada two options to be covered under Trump's so-called "Golden Dome" program. The first is to become a part of the US. The second is a $61 billion price tag. For the government of a foreign nation the size of Canada, that's basically pocket change.

Canada is not considering becoming part of the US. But they are considering his $61 billion offer.

And that consideration is all Trump needs. Again, they didn't give a forceful and unequivocal "no", which just gives Trump wiggle room to believe that there's still a there there. Give Trump that opportunity and he will exploit it to push his own agenda. And that's exactly what he's doing.

And this is why you don't negotiate with Trump. This is why you don't capitulate to Trump. You don't appease him. You don't even act polite about it. He sees those things as weaknesses that he can exploit and will believe that whatever he's after is now his by divine birthright, and your capitulation to him is a subtle acknowledgement that you know he's right.

This started as Canada responding to Trump's original threats by committing $1.3 billion to a fentanyl problem that didn't actually exist in order to appease him and shut him up. And they were rewarded for their appeasement by Trump increasingly turning up the rhetoric ever since. Because that's what Trump does. That's all he does.

A response to Trump needs to be immediate, forceful, unambiguous, and aggressive. Anything else is perceived as weakness. The first thing Canada should have done (and the same thing every other country should be doing) is responding accordingly. "Canada is a soverign nation that will under no circumstances be joining the United States under any conditions, and we resent the implication that we will just give up our position as a free and independent nation or will just roll over to the United States on Mr. Trump's say so. We demand that Mr. Trump make no further implications that Canada ever has or ever will consider becoming a part of the United States. Further statements on this subject risk doing severe and permanent harm to the diplomatic relations between our two countries. We will also be launching investigations into Trump and Trump-affiliated properties in Canada as we cannot and will not allow the leader of a foreign nation to set up shop in Canada and use the profits generated from those businesses to fund actions that will be harmful to our country and its sovereignty."

To me, he gives off a whiff of being entitled. He was a Parkland survivor and I think at least part of him thinks that shields him from criticism and means everybody should just fall in line behind him, and he doesn't seem to fully grasp that that isn't the case.

At least that's the impression I get.

And exactly what is your grand plan, oh wise one?

Trump has been ignoring court orders left and right. Mass firings are still happening. Fired workers haven't been rehired. Kilmar Garcia is still stuck in El Salvador. Immigrants are still being sent to third world countries with no notice or due process. Trump is issuing unconstitutional executive orders on the daily, and the Supreme Court themselves may very well rule that all of this is OK.

Hell, Trump's lawyers just argued in front of the Supreme Court that they will not abide by the Supreme Court's decision if they don't like it. SCOTUS judges didn't even reply with any kind of threat of consequences for ignoring a SCOTUS decision. They just accepted that Trump may or may not ignore the court and moved on with questioning. Why? Because they know they have no enforcement mechanism. Neither do any of the other courts. Why do you think they've done exactly nothing but issue empty threats of some arbitrary and undefined "contempt" charges for DOJ lackeys if they lie to the court 20 or 30 more times? Because that's all they've got. Anything beyond that and they'll be exposed for having no enforcement mechanism when Trump tells them to go pound sand. The court's threats have already been exposed as being about as effective as mommy telling a beligerent toddler that she's going to count to three, but keeps stopping at two and a half, two and three quarters.......

And we all know how it works out. No punishment ever comes. Mommy eventually buys the screaming child the toy just to shut him up, and then wonders why he pulls another temper tantrum in the next store they visit. Same thing applies here.

But hey, if you've got a viable plan besides taking an extra hit of copium and hoping for the best, I'd love to hear it.

The problem is that SCOTUS said two things:

1. "Official" acts are basically whatever Trump says they are unless the Supreme Court says otherwise.
2. Official acts can't be investigated or used as evidence of criminal activity for unofficial acts. In other words, if Trump says it's tied to an official act, it's covered as well.

In other words, Trump can do whatever the fuck he wants. All he's got to say is that the whole thing was tied to his implementation of economic policy or something and it's suddenly an "official act" that can't even be investigated unless the Supreme Court says it can.

Translated: No federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

Wrong. Translation is that the courts in general would be essentially a useless advisory board that can be ignored.

Side effect: As written, this would also effectively invalidate restraining orders against domestic abusers, for example. Since no "security" was posted at the time the restraining orders were issued, there's nothing legally stopping them from contacting their victims again.

I don't see anything setting a minimum bond. Who says they can't post a $1 security bond?

......while proceeding to do exactly fuck all about it.

Honestly, this is one of the rare times that even I have to say that Trump needs to pick his battles carefully.

The venn diagram of "MAGA" and "Walmart Shoppers" is basically a circle. And they're the ones with the guns. Seeing their walmart bill spike from $100 last week to $235 or whatever the next week may be the straw that breaks some of the camels' backs. There's only so long that Trump can deflect blame to Biden before even they start asking "But you're President now. What are you going to do about it?".

If Walmart is successful at making sure that their shoppers know that Trump's tariffs are to blame for the price hikes, there is a non-zero chance that it causes the leopards he unleashed to turn around and look at his face with that hungry look in their eyes.

Has anyone told Trump that Bruce Springsteen hasn't been relevant since before any of his kids were born?

I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for that to happen.....

Only for federal charges. If people are breaking state laws to push his agenda, he cannot pardon them. It’s a little thing, but it’s something.

For now.

No President has ever tried to issue a pardon for state crimes. Given this President and this Supreme Court, I would not be nearly as confident that that rule would hold if push were to come to shove. Especially in a political climate where virtually every institution that we expected to hold their ground has basically caved in to Trump at the first sign of pressure. I could easily see an argument made by this administration in front of this Supreme Court that the Supremacy Clause grants Trump the right to pardon state crimes easily being successful on a 6-3 split.

And I could also see Trump just physically imposing his will by sending people down to the state to physically free whoever is being held with a very similar mindset: "Are you going to stop me? You and what army?", having anybody who attempts to stop him arrested.

This story is about a specific legal mechanism (universal injunction) that has been used by federal judges in dozens of cases throughout decades. It’s a controversial mechanism that has been used on both sides of the political spectrum.

And it's also necessary to allow the courts to keep the justice system from getting overwhelmed. Without nationwide injunctions, it would lead to courts being swamped with hundreds of thousands of lawsuits from individual citizens instead of just dealing with a handful of lawsuits meant to represent people nationwide.

The lack of nationwide injunctions also means that the government would be able to trample on the rights of poor people with impunity, knowing that they very likely wouldn't have the knowledge, money, or resources needed to seek relief from the courts. They would also have the comfort of knowing they can continue trampling on their rights for years while these individual cases make their way through a bogged down court system.

Constitutional protections would only essentially be available to those with the money and resources to have legal representation. The Trump administration was basically arguing that they have the right to trample on the rights of those who cannot afford to defend themselves, and no federal judge should be able to stop them.

Trump’s lawyers are arguing that this very specific mechanism shouldn’t be permitted in current cases regarding immigration.

Actually, no. His lawyers are arguing that this mechanism shouldn't be permitted at all. That's the whole point of this case to begin with. The case itself is patently unconstitutional on its face. But the underlying goal -- the essential neutering of judicial review -- is the real prize. That's what this case is about.

They’ve also argued that this particular mechanism is unconstitutional. His lawyers are wrong, and shitty, but they are in no way arguing that “the constitution doesn’t apply to the president.”

Actually, they are. First, as I said above, the Trump administration is literally asking for the right to ignore Constitutional amendments and the rights granted by the Constitution. They're asking the Supreme Court to say that Trump can issue unconstitutional executive orders and that the courts have little to no right to judicial review or to do anything about it.

And more importantly, they literally admitted that the only court they're going to even listen to is the Supreme Court. Maybe.

They literally admitted, after being repeatedly questioned over it and after many attempts at tapdancing around it, that they have no intention of listening to lower courts and would abide by Supreme Court rulings that they agree with.

So yes. They absolutely are arguing that the Constitution doesn't apply to the President. The headline is accurate.