American Politics X: Is There A Reset Button Around Here?

[Cannot think of a name]

I just watched a rebroadcast of the event with that girl who tested positive for banned drugs. Holy crap the crater that created. So much fuckery. Every adult involved needs to not be part of this shit anymore.

??? Sorry I linked to the Jamaican bobsled team qualifying for the first time in 34 years. Hence reference to Cool Runnings

yeah man, I was just using that to touch off on this other olympic shit I just witnessed. I wasn't confused. I knew about the Jamaican bobsled thing, sliding is my favorite part of the olympics.

[The Black Forrest]

I just watched a rebroadcast of the event with that girl who tested positive for banned drugs. Holy crap the crater that created. So much fuckery. Every adult involved needs to not be part of this shit anymore.

??? Sorry I linked to the Jamaican bobsled team qualifying for the first time in 34 years. Hence reference to Cool Runnings

Are they legit or just another Nike stunt? They also did the two cross country skiers from Kenya back in 98.

[Kowani]

As a historic aside, FDR’s court-packing shenanigans are not the last time someone tried to push the court (that sort of worked, mind, even though the actual push failed to add more justices, the court straightened up its act), but rather, LBJ, who got a Supreme Court justice to quit by appointing him UN ambassador (Arthur Goldberg) and another (Thomas Clark) to quit by making his son Attorney General and creating a conflict of interest

This got me thinking about this development of the explicit politicization of the Court, so we're going to take a little detour to look at earlier Congressional and Executive shenanigans around the Court's power.

SCOTUS is created by Article Three, Section One of the Constitution, which reads like so: The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
The scope of SCOTUS, meanwhile, is established in Article Three, Section Two. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States;—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

And that's it (there is a Section 3 but it deals with treason, so it's not relevant here.

You will notice that this is a bit barebones-but it also leaves SCOTUS with very fragile power. The Second Clause of Section Two provides that SCOTUS has original jurisdiction in cases affecting ambassadors, ministers and consuls, and also in "controversies" which are subject to federal judicial power because at least one state is a party. Everything else is appellate jurisdiction-the ability to review/overturn lower court decisions. The end text reads "with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." That is, with the exception of the cases involving the aforementioned federal officials where a state is a party, Congress has the power to strip the Court of jurisdiction to hear a case (this can be done in two different ways, eliminating any judicial review of certain federal or state actions, or transferring judicial review responsibility to state courts).

With those limits established, we begin.
The Constitution says nothing whatsoever about the composition or qualifications for the Court. That is left up to Congress. And so, Congress begins in 1789 with 6 justices-a Chief Justice and 5 Associates.
And shenanigans begin. 1793, in Chisholm v. Georgia, the Court holds the grant of federal jurisdiction over suits "between a State and Citizens of another State" in Section 2 abrogates the States' sovereign immunity, granting federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.

And in 1795 we get the 11th Amendment ratified, superseding Chisholm, reading as such: "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State." Now the 11th is a unique case because it's pushed by the states as an amendment, rather than legislation affecting the scope of the Court. But it's the first-and rather blatant example of SCOTUS seeing its power broken.
Skip along a couple years (because for the first 3 Courts, nothing else of major importance happened) and-the Court's expanded its power massively in Marbury v. Madison (Court gave itself the power of judicial review), Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (Court gave itself the power to hear appeals from state courts in civil cases where federal law is concerned) and Cohens v. Virginia (Court gave itself to review state supreme court decisions in criminal law matters when the defendant claims their constitutional rights have been violated).
You will notice I say "gave itself the power" rather than "asserted jurisdiction" or "established the principle of [arcane legal term]." That is because this is functionally what is happening-the Supreme Court, being only checkable by Congress, expands its reach into areas that had previously been outside it-based solely upon its own saying-so.

There is one other important incident we have to talk about here-because it comes in response to all this expansion of the Court's reach-the failed impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase. As far as standard history goes, it's a small footnote and trivia piece, the only Justice to be impeached by the House. The grounds are mostly spurious-procedural errors made as a circuit judge, "intemperate remarks", jury/witness biases, and not allowing counsel to argue the law before the jury. But for Jefferson, it's an attempt to remove Federalist influence from the Court (just one hour before the House voted to impeach Chase, the Jeffersonian controlled Senate had convicted and removed Judge Samuel Pickering), a threat to his political program and understanding of the Constitution. There's just one problem-it fails miserably. Despite the fact that Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans constitute 25 votes in the Senate (more than the 23 needed for conviction), the nature of the trial- As John Quincy Adams noted, “hours of interrogation and answers were consumed in evidence to looks, to bows, to tones of voice and modes of speech—to prove the insufferable grievance that Mr. Chase had more than once raised a laugh at the expense of Callender’s (one of the defendants in an Alien and Sedition case) counsel, and to ascertain the tremendous fact that he had accosted the Attorney General of Virginia by the appellation of ‘Young Gentleman.'", and the fact that one of the House impeachment managers (Rep. Joseph Nicolson) changed the charges mid-trial leads to defections, and Chase is acquitted on all 8 articles, sitting on the Court until his death in 1811.
The second attempt to abridge the Court ends in failure-and while traditional history says this "preserves the independence of the supreme court", I think this is misleading. As we shall see, this merely requires more subtle attempts to influence the court-like what the Democrats did in 1807, increasing the court to 7 seats, and then again under Jackson, from 7 to 9 in 1837.

Marshall dies, and we get Roger Taney. Famous for the Dred Scott decision, generally awful. And it is exactly that decision that I am going to focus on here. See, Taney was a hardcore partisan Jacksonian Democrat. And he issues Dred Scott not just because he's extremely racist by the standards of the time (that too), not just because he thought it would put an end to the slave question in the South's favour (that too), but for pure political gain. Understand that Dredd Scott was not only probably the worst decision (or moral or legal grounds) in the court's history, it was also an all but partisan decision (the only Justice in the majority or concurrences who was not a Democratic appointee was Samuel Nelson, a John Tyler appointee who did not assert that African-Americans were not citizens in his opinion). It was a maneuver intended to nip the Republican coalition in the bud.

One small problem for Taney-it doesn't work out that way at all, once the Civil War kicks off. The Court was explicitly ignored by the executive with habeas corpus shenanigans in Ex parte Merryman. The Court then had its number changed multiple times in a blatant game of political maneuvering to screw over the Democrats in general and Andrew Johnson in particular-In 1863 Congress expanded the court from 9 justices to 10, just to give Lincoln more appointments. In 1866, Congressional Republicans lowered it back to 7 to deny Andrew Johnson any appointments. It then gets expanded back to 9 for Grant in 1869. And in Ex parte McCardle, to drive the final nail in the coffin, Congress stripped the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction of a case it was in the process of hearing in 1869. (This is the only time this has ever happened)

It is important to state just how weak the federal judiciary was in the 1870s. They had spent the previous decade suffering what can only be described as a beat down for the centuries. And then, the 14th Amendment gives the Court the chance to take back some of its power.
See, the Bill of Rights didn't actually apply to the states for most of American history. In fact, the third Amendment doesn't apply to the states outside of Connecticut, New York, and Vermont, while select clauses of the 5th, (Right to indictment by a grand jury) and 6th amendments (Right to a jury selected from residents of the state and district where the crime occurred), and the entire 7th amendment don't apply to the states at all.

So we're going to explain a little bit of Congressional manuevering. The principal framer of the 14th Amendment was an Ohio Representative named John Bingham (a Radical Repblican). who believed Congress needed further authority to insure their planned Reconstruction. His faction of the Radicals believed that the Thirteenth Amendment did not extend sufficient authority for Congress to enact all of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That overreach was not bad in and of itself-What was dangerous about it was that it created vulnerability. A vulnerability so massive that a Redeemer Congress or a Taneyite Supreme Court could use it to, by the dash of a pen, resurrect the slave power that the Republican Party had just spent four bloody years defeating, in whole. Bingham feared that short of a further constitutional rewrite, the Radicals’ plans for Reconstruction could not be secured future assault. That they could be washed away forever.

To secure this Achilles Heel, in 1866, a compromise amendment passed the House and the Senate. In one fell swoop Congress would overturn Dredd Scott, provide itself with sweeping new authority, provide countermeasures to the disenfranchisement of African Americans, disqualify rebels from holding office, and repudiate Confederate debts.

At its core, the Fourteenth Amendment was an omnibus amendment intending to reunify an unruly Republican Congress and remake the Constitution. But notable amongst the omnibus nature of the Fourteenth Amendment is that Section One represents a two-fold constitutional retroactive continuity.

First and foremost, Section One is effectively one of the most profound cases of bet-hedging in American history, providing the retroactive constitutional bedrock for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and implicitly, the other acts of the 39th Congress. This is the intra-congressional coalition-building part of the amendment, Congress giving itself the thumbs-up for its past actions. Section One is—in a sense—an ex-post-facto authorization of the 39th Congress’s Reconstruction policies.

Thaddeus Stevens thought that Congress could overturn Dredd Scott and secure the rights of America’s new African American citizens by statute. Bingham demanded an amendment, so they split the difference and did both. To make this even more clear, the 41st Congress re-enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in 1870, as a provision of the First Enforcement Act—an act introduced by Judiciary Committee Chair John Bingham.

Second (and relevant to our story) Section One also represents a retconning of the entire Constitution of 1787. The Second Sentence of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment should be best understood as embedding a strain of self-consciously anachronistic abolitionist constitutionalism into the Constitution. The core conceit is premised on a specific interpretation of the Privilege and Immunities Clause, that it should be understood as: “the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens [of the United States…] in the several states."

This “ellipsis” reading turns a rather benign clause about states treating other states’ citizens into a sweeping creation of a new set of national rights. However, Bingham argued that though the constitution created an enduring set of national rights at its onset—the Constitution did not create an enforcement mechanism for those rights. More or less that the Constitution had created a set of national rights, placed them behind a locked door, and did not to give Congress a key, and so the Radicals wrote a key into the constitution.

Meanwhile, the Second Sentence of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of 1787 can be fairly understood as retroactively ratifying the ellipsis reading of the Privileges and Immunities Clause—all the way back in 1868. Or in Bingham’s words: "by express authority of the Constitution to do that by congressional enactment which hitherto they have not had the power to do, and have never even attempted to do; that is, to protect by national law the privileges and immunities of all the citizens of the Republic and the inborn rights of every person within its jurisdiction whenever the same shall be abridged or denied by the unconstitutional acts of any State."

Of course, this begs the question—what exactly is this new set of retconned national rights? Bingham, arguing the minimalist case before, up that point, a fairly, recalcitrant Congress, claimed that "The fourteenth amendment, it is believed, did not add to the privileges or immunities before mentioned, but was deemed necessary for their enforcement as an express limitation upon the powers of the States."

Now this is important to read in context, as Bingham’s previous attempts to codify the ellipsis theory were more direct, more expansive, and all failed. He had originally written a clause empowering Congress “to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property.” And that crashed and burned, the Congressional majority at the time feared directly empowering Congress would effectively end federalism. Thus, Bingham rewrote the clause to protect against abridgment, a weaker phrase that was intended to convey that the clause was not adding new privileges or immunities. But even then, Bingham stated that the privileges and immunities were not exclusively the first eight amendments of the constitution—they were just “chiefly defined” by the Bill of Rights.

Which runs into the issue of what exactly are the "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States"? And that's where SCOTUS steps in and reasserts its power. If the Court were to act as Bingham claimed and incorporate the entirety of the Bill of Rights, it would face two major issues. One , it would lose the authority to decide which elements of the Bill of Rights were incorporated because there would be nothing left to incorporate and two, it would find itself burdened with a truly tremendous workload—a deluge of litigation would drown the justices in their seats (while also quite potentially raising major questions about every facet of the American constitutional structure)

The court would simultaneously lose its power to choose, find itself with a truly massive new and entirely self-inflicted workload built on fundamentally reworking the foundation of the American legal system. This applies as much to the late 1870s as it does today, and every court inbetween. Stare Decisis binds the court, as does their own rational self-interest toward furthering their power and control of their branch of government.

So by rejecting Bingham Constitutionalism, the court was able to empower itself after a decade The Gilded Age court reasserted its influence not only because Congress was no longer curbstomping it, but also because the reach of the federal government had expanded—federal courts were hearing and deciding much more “regular” cases than it had prior (thanks to those expansions under the Radicals)

Now, the reason why the Court was able to enact opinions contrary to the intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment is a lack of consensus: Quite simply, there was not enough time with anyone in a trifecta or (a particularly strong trifecta inclined to kick the Court in the shins—there were only six years of united government between 1874 and 1896 (four Republican, two Democratic).

Two, the court wasn’t acting against the Republican Party, which had appointed them—it was acting within the Republican coalition. The GOP was divided on civil rights, and the general trend of the party was something along the lines “we support civil rights, but we won’t actually invest any political capital in their assertion.” The Republican coalition had run the limit of its consensus on civil rights, and that gave the court freedom to act—and it usually sided with the more legally conservative and lily-white factions of the GOP.

Take, for example, Plessy v Ferguson, which legalized “separate but equal” segregation—but it also firmly closed the door on a return to the Black Codes of the 1860s and 70s. The Court had sided with the Republican Party’s position—at the expense of the privileges and immunities of those Blacks Americans the Supreme Court and the Republican Party saw as not worth the cost of defending.

This mostly brings us to the present day, where the Court has finally resurrected the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment through unintended means, using the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. The process of selective incorporation empowered the Court, but saw the privileges and immunities of Americans protected.

[Cannot think of a name]

I feel like I owe someone tuition.

[Alcala-Cordel]

Okay? Is this an answer to the question I posed for GMS about destroying records?

Nothing has been proven against President Trump, the anti Trump, leftist, liberal, democrats, VIPs and leftist media, have been trying for over 4 years and counting, this is a Fact.

not even those times he was documented hanging out with Epstien? Huh.

[Space Squid]

Nothing has been proven against President Trump, the anti Trump, leftist, liberal, democrats, VIPs and leftist media, have been trying for over 4 years and counting, this is a Fact.

not even those times he was documented hanging out with Epstien? Huh.

"Something something whataboutism something something, we have our own facts that are different from your facts!"

[Ifreann]

Very reasonable punishment

Would you rather Trump be free?

Who cares? Obviously Trump isn't going to get sent to jail for life for bringing classified documents to Mar-a-lago.

---

Would you rather Trump be free?

If was either that or the United States military rains down upon Mar a Lago while Battle Hymn of The Republic blasts and they drag Trump out of there.

Yeah, it's either Trump going to jail for life or the military murdering loads of innocent people for no reason. Those are the only two options.

[HISPIDA]

As a historic aside, FDR’s court-packing shenanigans are not the last time someone tried to push the court (that sort of worked, mind, even though the actual push failed to add more justices, the court straightened up its act), but rather, LBJ, who got a Supreme Court justice to quit by appointing him UN ambassador (Arthur Goldberg) and another (Thomas Clark) to quit by making his son Attorney General and creating a conflict of interest

-snip-

wow thats a lotta words
too bad im not readin em

[Grave_n_idle]

All records must be turned over to the National Archives at end of the Presidency. It is federal property and given some were top secret I don't see how there is no crime here.

So taking it was not the issue, the illegality is not returning it.

There are several issues, especially given that some of the records were destroyed - which CAN be legal, but only if authorized by the Archivist: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/44/2203

Taking records when he left the White House would be a breach of the PRA, and can't even be blamed on anyone else - responsibility for ensuring records are not taken or destroyed rests entirely with the (outgoing) president:

https://www.archives.gov/presidential-l ... 1635877428
https://www.archives.gov/publications/p ... st-pra-fra

"Immediately after the President leaves office, the National Archives takes legal and physical custody of the outgoing administration’s records and begins to work with the incoming White House staff to provide advice on appropriate records management".

The National Archives have released multiple statements about the illegal taking and/or destruction of documents by the outgoing administration:

https://www.archives.gov/press/press-re ... 2/nr22-001

Also, even if Trump were to argue that these records were not PRESIDENTAL records - which automatically become Archive property - they are still FEDERAL records (and thus covered by the FRA) - and the National Archives and Records Administration has DIRECT authority over Federal records.

There are other legal requirements that would apply, anyway:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2071
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/641

But since Trump has claimed he took the records so that some of them could be displayed in his presidential library, he has already conceded they ARE Presidential Records. He has no flexibility on their disposal.

Lastly - some of the recovered documents were "marked as classified national security information within the boxes". Consequently, the NA has "been in communication with the Department of Justice".

https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/fer ... 8.2022.pdf


tl/dr: no. Taking the records was illegal. Destroying the records was illegal.

[San Lumen]

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/dem ... ?_amp=true

Ohio Supreme Court threatens to hold Redistricting Commission in contempt

[Neuer California]

The way things are going, I imagine Trump will be the second president, sitting or former, to be arrested.

First was Grant, btw https://www.davemanuel.com/2021/01/11/u ... -arrested/

[The Jamesian Republic]

The way things are going, I imagine Trump will be the second president, sitting or former, to be arrested.

First was Grant, btw https://www.davemanuel.com/2021/01/11/u ... -arrested/

I also learned that his last words were Water.

[San Lumen]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/poli ... f2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

despite its the name the commission has nothing to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry.

[Ifreann]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/politics/sarah-stogner-gop-texas-candidate-oil-pump-ad/273-05ecf275-2010-41d4-bcac-8cf2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

Horny for oil.

[The Jamesian Republic]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/politics/sarah-stogner-gop-texas-candidate-oil-pump-ad/273-05ecf275-2010-41d4-bcac-8cf2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

despite its the name the commission has nothing to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry.

First guns and now oil? What will they do next?

Also so much for family values.

[Grinning Dragon]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/politics/sarah-stogner-gop-texas-candidate-oil-pump-ad/273-05ecf275-2010-41d4-bcac-8cf2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

despite its the name the commission has nothing to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry.

HEH. Giggity, Giggity.
Her main issue is winterizing utilities and such and doing this stunt was a way for people to notice and garner votes for her.

[Ifreann]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/politics/sarah-stogner-gop-texas-candidate-oil-pump-ad/273-05ecf275-2010-41d4-bcac-8cf2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

despite its the name the commission has nothing to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry.

First guns and now oil? What will they do next?

What do you mean, "first guns"?

[The Alma Mater]

First guns and now oil? What will they do next?

What do you mean, "first guns"?

Guns are often used as props in republican photos. It has been joked that even Bin Laden had a better books to guns ratio in his pics than Boebert.

[Ifreann]

What do you mean, "first guns"?

Guns are often used as props in republican photos. It has been joked that even Bin Laden had a better books to guns ratio in his pics than Boebert.

I think don't think that the prop here was the oil.

[Iain Donkey Sith]

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/politics/sarah-stogner-gop-texas-candidate-oil-pump-ad/273-05ecf275-2010-41d4-bcac-8cf2512492e4

A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad commission has put out a truly bizarre ad where she decided to sit seminude atop an oil pump

despite its the name the commission has nothing to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry.

A nodding donkey show

[The Jamesian Republic]

What do you mean, "first guns"?

Guns are often used as props in republican photos. It has been joked that even Bin Laden had a better books to guns ratio in his pics than Boebert.

This.

[The Alma Mater]

Guns are often used as props in republican photos. It has been joked that even Bin Laden had a better books to guns ratio in his pics than Boebert.

I think don't think that the prop here was the oil.

Guns are very phallic.

[Grinning Dragon]

I think don't think that the prop here was the oil.

Guns are very phallic.

Only to people who view it in such a fetish style manner and have no real arguments and digress to penis jokes.

[The Alma Mater]

Guns are very phallic.

Only to people who view it in such a fetish style manner and have no real arguments and digress to penis jokes.

Indeed. Hence why republicans love to display them in their ads.

[Grinning Dragon]

Only to people who view it in such a fetish style manner and have no real arguments and digress to penis jokes.

Indeed. Hence why republicans love to display them in their ads.

Meh. I really don't see the big deal, and people getting their knickers in a twist over it obviously have bigger issues than some candidate sporting a firearm.