It was John Roberts’ SCOTUS that gave Donald Trump executive immunity,
So he can break the economy and kidnap, starve and murder folks with impunity.
But for every human being he kills
For vengeance, greed or thrills,
Roberts and his conservative co-conspirators are guilty of complicity.
So, Joe Biden has decided to float us
His plan for fixing a corrupt SCOTUS.
It’s light on the specifics,
But heavy on the ethics.
Warning, robed rogues — don’t f*ck with a lame-duck POTUS!
“Given the court’s demonstrated inability to preserve its own legitimate conduct, it is incumbent upon Congress to contain the threat this poses to our democracy and the hundreds of millions of Americans harmed by the crisis of corruption unfurling within the court. Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach.”
— Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York introduced articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday, ramping up Democrats’ disapproval of the high court in the wake of ethics issues and a spate of major decisions at the close of its latest term.
In the 2022 General Social Survey, just 18% of Americans said they have a great deal of confidence in the court, down from 26% in 2021, and 36% said they had hardly any, up from 21%. Another 46% said they have “only some” confidence in the most recent survey.
Pro-Publica: “In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
“If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.
“For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
“The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.”
A new Annenberg Public Policy Center survey finds that 53% of U.S. adults disapprove of how the Supreme Court handles its job. The survey also reveals a chasm between the qualities the American people say they value most in judges, such as fairness and impartiality, and the traits they perceive in Supreme Court justices.
A new Gallup poll finds 47% of U.S. adults say they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the Supreme Court. That represents a 20-percentage-point drop from two years ago, including seven points since last year, and is now the lowest in Gallup’s trend by six points.
The Supreme Court might be on the way to an anti-Trump trifecta.
First it was rights for gays and lesbians, then it was upholding DACA.
If Trump’s relying on John and Neil
For their vaunted conservative appeal,
He’s going to find himself abandoned, alone and in deep caca.
“We’ve already seen how he did, how he acted, the week after impeachment. Can you imagine this man after re-election?”
— Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to Pres. Obama and author
Party affiliation of the Senate of the 111th Congress
If impeachment taught us one thing, it has to be the importance of flipping the Senate from Republican majority to Democratic majority. Had Democrats controlled the Senate during the trial, evidence would have been pursued, witnesses would have been both called and believed, and Donald Trump would have been held accountable for his naked power grabbing.
Likewise, even if Donald Trump wins in November, with a Democratically-controlled Senate joining the Democratically-controlled House, he will get nothing done. He will be rendered the ineffectual red-faced crybaby that he is if he has no enablers to make his dreams reality.
Not convinced that the Senate races are more important in 2020 than the presidential contest? The next president will almost certainly get to nominate two Supreme Court justices — but those people will have to be approved by the Senate. We’ve already seen who Republicans approve. Having two more justices like the first two will change life as Americans, particularly progressive Americans, know it. […]
They say that power naps can be effective,
Especially for a busy chief executive.
So when Dear Leader Dozy Don
Nods out with a blink and a yawn,
It’s OK — when he’s asleep he’s not spewing racist invective.
“You can give up certain products. You could give up pencils. Because under the China policy, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two. They don’t need that many. You always need steel. You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice. So we’re doing things right.”
— Donald Trump, at a rally in Pennsylvania last night.
“Please send Trump to every single House swing district. He is so out of touch and in the fantasy bubble you created that he will help Dems flip the House even more.”
— Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) issued a plea to the White House.
A new AP-NORC poll finds just 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how President Trump is handling the economy. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. Overall, 36% of Americans approve of the way he’s handling his job as president, which is down slightly from 42% in March.
Forty-five percent of small-business owners in the U.S. said inflation was their biggest challenge, according to a survey by the Chamber of Commerce, Axios reports.
The Intercept: Two survivors clung to the wreckage of a vessel attacked by the U.S. military for roughly 45 minutes before a second strike killed them on September 2. After about three quarters of an hour, Adm. Frank Bradley, then head of Joint Special Operations Command, ordered a follow-up strike that killed the shipwrecked men.
A new Pew Research poll finds just 17% of Americans now say they trust the federal government to do what is right “just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (15%). Frustration has long been Americans’ dominant emotion toward the federal government and 49% say they feel frustrated. Another 26% say they are angry, and 23% say they are basically content.
LAist.com: Voters notoriously do not show up for off-year elections in the same numbers, as say, a presidential election. But given how consequential Prop. 50 was, there was a lot of curiosity about how many voters would participate. The answer? About 11.6 million people — a turnout of 50% statewide. It’s not as high as California’s last special election in 2021 on whether to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom — turnout then was 58.4%. But it’s a solid showing for California, especially for an off-year special election. In fact, it’s on par with California’s 2022 midterm elections, which saw 50.8% turnout.