politics

On the one hand, I understand why people think SCOTUS will rule in Trump's favor.

On the other hand, they did NOT rule for the Independendent State Legislature theory. Which I think people were surprised about. It was sold as a necessary step for our descent into true minority GOP rule. And SCOTUS didn't accept it.

Why would they miss a chance to cement that lever of GOP rule and then take this one? Isn't SCOTUS the exact conservative group that have ZERO incentive to bow down to Trump? Perhaps in fear of their own lives? But wouldn't the knowledge of their own hostage situation mean they would want to fight this somehow?

This is the GOPs opportunity to find it's way out of the Trump Wilderness and you'd think the oligarchs, if they really do own the judges, would discard Trump and try again in 2028.

Unless of course Kavanaugh et al really are directly being blackmailed by Trump. But then again, why didn't they accept the ISL theory when we all thought they would?

For those that didn't read the article, just wanted to point out that the author still states that it's very unlikely that the stacked Supreme Court will rule against Trump.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

As election law scholar Rick Hasen writes, “the arguments that Trump has advanced in his most recent brief are weaker and more hedged than I would have expected,” and “it’s hard to know exactly where the court goes from here,” given this meager performance by the former president’s attorneys.

Trump, in other words, is asking the Court to open a Pandora’s box that it slammed shut after hearing widespread alarm from across the legal profession — including some of the conservative movement’s most dedicated activists.

The plaintiffs challenging Trump’s eligibility point to myriad evidence indicating that, by the time the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, the term “officer of the United States” was understood to include the president.

It would be extraordinary if the Supreme Court ruled that this alleged, penny-ante citation error so “exceed[s] the bounds of ordinary judicial review” as to justify invoking the independent state legislature doctrine — a doctrine the Supreme Court has rejected many times over the course of a century and that it recently rejected after an array of retired generals and admirals warned the justices that it threatens national security.

If the justices rule that the Colorado decision must be tossed out because of a minor error in the court’s construction of state law, that would do nothing to resolve the broader question of whether Trump is disqualified under the 14th Amendment.

Brandenburg involved a speech at a Ku Klux Klan rally, attended by “12 hooded figures, some of whom carried firearms,” where a speaker said that “if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.” Yet, even though this speech advocated violence against the highest US officials, the Court tossed out the law used to prosecute this speaker, holding that a state cannot punish “mere advocacy” of violence, but only “imminent lawless action.”

The original article contains 3,137 words, the summary contains 319 words. Saved 90%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!