GiddyGapThe Supreme Court seems poised to reject efforts to kick Trump off the ballot over the Capitol riot
JaysynBye, bye 14th Amendment.
tsonfeirBye bye all amendments.
PugJesus"Freedom of speech means you can express opinions in your own property, not anywhere in public. And if you rent, that's not your property." - SCOTUS 2025
“Freedom of speech on your own property only means you can say what you want inside your home where no one else can hear you” - SCOTUS 2026
“We are listening always.” SCOTUS 2027
“We can read your mind thanks to our mandatory brain implants” - SCOTUS 2028
Free speech zones are already a thing that’s perfectly legal. It’s often used to hide unwanted protestors.
SCOTUS rules that they can overturn amendments.
HACKthePRISONSwhen are we going to accept that the constitution is dead and the supreme court has no power?
SCOTUS rules it can choose the next president.
SCOTUS rules it can execute people without a trial.
Good. Let him lose again, trying to litigate him off the ballot will create a WAY bigger problem.
The problem already exists. It's time we face it. If we have 1/3rd of the nation lining up as racist traitors that don't like the freedoms the nation provides then its time to stamp them out. If what makes them rear their ugly head is removing Trump from the ballot then so be it. Really I don't know why Trump isn't in prison for Jan 6th.
Really selatious language friend. Hope you have a gun to back up your absolutism.
I think if a trump fascist takeover is attempted, they’re gonna find out that a lot of people on the left also have guns
The bigger problem is that we have to allow criminals to compete for the highest office in the country just so some Repubs won’t get their feelings hurt, imo
Yeah, only the republicans are criminals. You’re wild.
I was just talking about Trump. Why not pick literally anybody else? Because it’s a cult.
I mean, yeah it’s disappointing but hopefully a legal case can prove he in incited an insurrection and then states can remove him from the ballot. Then the SCOTUS would have to quite literally just nullify a a part of the Constitution, which would be… not out of the realm of possibilities at this point
I mean, yeah it’s disappointing but hopefully a legal case can prove he in incited an insurrection and then states can remove him from the ballot.
"Trial was too close to an election. Political. Overruled."
Fast forward to 2025: Defendant Donald Trump in the Insurrection Case given a Presidential Pardon by President Donald Trump. Matter settled.
agent_flounderThe legal case in Colorado already determined he met the definitions of insurrection as known by the authors of the 14th.
Based on a summary of their questions and statements, I suspect SCOTUS will rule that only via a procedure defined by Congress can someone be determined to be ineligible for the Presidency based on the 14th. And only at the federal level.
There was such a procedure defined by law following the Civil War but it was revoked by Congress in the 1940s.
theprogressivist Bruh, it’s already been proven he’s an insurrectionist by the courts. Gotta love how SCOTUS thinks it can overrule an amendment.
Semi-Hemi-Demigod"The 14th Amendment wasn't in the original Constitution so it's not valid" - The Supreme Court, probably
So that would mean insurrection would be legal in America. If Biden loses to Trump, I will feel empowered to riot in the same way. Time to get a gun I guess.
Anything resembling a more left leaning insurrection will get a very different response than the last one. You will be murdered by the state on the spot.
stownThis is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
TropicalDingdongThis is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
Better get on it or you will be out of time.
I think it’s the judges who should be worried about “running out of time”
I mean, BLM had the space in front of the Supreme Court pretty much blocked off when they decided to march on it. When the patriot prayer event happened, that was 10k plus people descending on the Supreme Court.
I simply do not see that happening.
Let me spell it out for you - January 6th the supreme Court but actually get it done.
The feds bombed a civilian neighborhood in the 80s
They didn’t bomb a neighborhood…
They flattened an entire block.
fadingembersRules for thee
Questions of Legality aren’t being heard here. This is only about eligibility for being on a presidential ballot and the ability of an individual state to determine eligibility and remove the candidate from the ballot.
No. The questions posed by the Supreme Court centered around whether there was merit in allowing any single state, which may have arbitrary criteria and or processes, to effectively eliminate a candidate from the ballot, and if so, under what constraints. Ours a valid question. Where is the line? If you allow this precedent, how might it be abused by others?
States rights only matter when it oppressed women, not when it’s constitutionally legal and valid!
It’s not allowing a single court to decide, the Supreme Court of the land is be reviewing that decision right now. They’re not just going to do that on their own. It has to start somewhere.
oxjoxIt may mean that someone found guilty of insurrection may not be voted by state electors to be president.
You’re now on a list.
Looks like 248 years is the cutoff for a democratic United States. We’ll soon see if the Christians can contain their collective erection for destroying societies for 2 years so we can at least say 250.
HegarI'm all for democracy in the US, but the electoral college was put in specifically to avoid being a democracy. Also representative democracy is just a fancy word for oligarchy. Plus legislation hasn't represented public opinion since the at least the 80s, based on research from Princeton.
So we've never been designed as democracy, they are checks against democracy, and we're not functionally democratic.
What christians and fascists are destroying at the moment is the rule of law.
ToastedPlanetbut the electoral college was put in specifically to avoid being a democracy.
This interpretation ignores well know historical events. The electoral college was created as part of a series of compromises. It was not created to prevent democracy. The flaws in our democracy are being exploited to achieve minority rule. However, they are flaws that can be fixed, not the defining qualities of our democracy.
history.com/…/electoral-college-founding-fathers-…
Also representative democracy is just a fancy word for oligarchy.
This is factually incorrect. Even a causal review of definitions of the word representative democracy demonstrate this has no basis in reality.
www.britannica.com/…/representative-democracy
representative democracy, political system in which citizens of a country or other political entity vote for representatives to handle legislation and otherwise rule that entity on their behalf.
Plus legislation hasn’t represented public opinion since the at least the 80s, based on research from Princeton.
The constitution has been in effect since 1789. Recent neoliberalism aside, we have always been a democracy. We are in danger of becoming a christofascist dictatorship, in no small part because of neoliberalism, if we do not vote in record numbers in the 2024 election.
What christians and fascists are destroying at the moment is the rule of law.
The Republican party is destroying is our democracy. It’s why they focus so heavily on subverting our elections and reducing voter turn out. They will happily see that laws are enforced once they are in power. It’s “rules for thee not for me”.
Match!!It’s actually an extremely long run for a persistent Constitution. So yes, I would bet against it
NixThe US has barely ever been a democracy. Women didnt get the right to vote until 1920 and Black people were barely allowed to vote until the 1960s. The US has been an apartheid state and then a plutocracy
I don’t disagree with you, but I think my point still stands; every time the Christians make a power grab, shit hits the fan.
There’s a reason the puritans got kicked out of Europe.
They didn’t come here to escape “religious persecution,” they came here to continue persecuting people who weren’t their religion. Look what they’ve done to every group that isn’t them, just from a historical perspective.
Is that what we’re gonna sit here and watch happen yet again?
44razorsedgeI do not understand the US judiciary nullifying a portion of the “sacred” constitution. Seems like the beginning of the end, to an outside observer. Thanks for all the fish!!
No, no, don't worry, the Supreme Court ruling that the plain language of the Constitution must be interpreted in ever-narrower ways (except when it helps the right-wing) is totally not troubling at all.
No way man, this is the middle of the end. The beginning of the end was when they introduced legal bribery after dumbing down the general populace for a couple decades.
Can we just get to the end? I’m tired of all this.
I wouldn’t count this as over just yet. it makes sense that the judges would reserve their harshest questioning for the side that feels they must upend an election. Even the Liberal justices were wary of that.
They spent very little time on the topic of whether Trump was engaged in insurrection. To me, that means their minds are made up on that, one way or the other. You would think if they were going to let him off the hook based on that, though, they would ask more questions.
I think they will rule that individual states can’t use the amendment to keep candidates off of primary ballots. That much is clear. I wonder if they rule that Trump must remain on the ballot, but cannot serve if he wins – unless waived by Congress. It would make the discussion of Trump’s VP much more interesting.
BlackbeardI think they will rule that individual states can’t use the amendment to keep candidates off of primary ballots. That much is clear.
But the challenge isn’t that he’s not eligible to run in the primary. The challenge is that he’s not eligible to run for President. So if they rule that he isn’t, and they do it quickly, states will have to leave him off the ballot in September(ish) when early ballots are printed.
I wonder if they rule that Trump must remain on the ballot, but cannot serve if he wins – unless waived by Congress.
If he’s eligible to be on the ballot, he’s eligible to run for President. There’s no mechanism where SCOTUS can say “yes you can run, but we say you can’t be sworn in.” Their only opening is on the eligibility question, which is a simple yes or no.
The nuance you’re missing is that Congress by 2/3rds majority can vote to essentially nullify ineligibility part of the 14th amendment. So he could theoretically get elected and Congress could vote that he could still serve despite leading an insurrection.
Would Congress ever vote on that? Not a chance. But it still leaves open eligibility, which is the issue. If he could be eligible to be president, can he really be kept off the ballot?
Their only opening is on the eligibility question, which is a simple yes or no.
It can’t be a simple yes or no, though, because the eligibility restriction can be waived. And the amendment says “No person shall … hold any office”, which says nothing about running for office. There’s nothing that says that waiver has to come before declaring any candidacy.
I would not put it past them to say something like “He is currently ineligible. If he runs anyway, then Congress can wait to decide to waive it until after the election”. Kicking the can as far down the road as possible, in the hopes that Trump loses and none of this is necessary.
I hope you’re correct in your analysis.
To me the argument was leaning more into the idea that it would be a violation of Stinky’s rights to prevent him from being in the ballot. I think it’s nuts to say, allow a traitor to run and be elected, then they can attempt to have their disability removed by Congress.
If they rule to overturn Colorado’s decision, they will have essentially nullified section 3.
I don’t think the reconstructionists ever imagined that a large number of people would look at someone who pointed a cannon at the Constitution and say that person should definitely hold office. If section 3 is not self-executing I struggle to see how it could be effectively used in any scenario.
To me the argument was leaning more into the idea that it would be a violation of Stinky’s rights to prevent him from being in the ballot.
Which is an absolute horseshit argument. Is it a violation of the rights of a 33 year old person to say he’s constitutionally ineligible to be President?
No, because that literally one of the conditions for office the Constitution requires.
There is no due process violation because there’s no process at all- if you try to overthrow the government that is a prima facie disqualifier for being President. You don’t have to be convicted, the same way you don’t get convicted of being under 35 or convicted of not spending 14 years in the US.
To say otherwise means there’s a lot of dead Confederates the US government owes an apology to.
The main shortcoming of that is that it’s easily definable and determinable that someone is under 35yrs old, or hasn’t lived in the US for 14yrs.
But the definition of participation in insurrection is a little more loosy-goosy, and then you have to be (legally speaking) explicit in what constitutes proof that a potential candidate has participated in such an insurrection. Otherwise it will devolve into anyone accusing the candidates they don’t like of having participated in attempted insurrection.
To be clear, I’m not advocating that Trump should be allowed on the ballot or to be president, because he absolutely shouldn’t. I’m just pointing out that it’s not as simple as saying a candidate is younger than 35.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct.
But Colorado already decided that. The court found, as a matter of fact and using previous judicial case law, that Trump does meet all of the requirements necessary for disqualification under the 14th. It’s not just a single person choosing to keep Trump off the ballot.
Besides that, we literally have
- video of Trump telling his mob that they have to fight like hell.
- video of Trump telling them they’re gonna lose their country.
- video of Trump telling them to go to the Capitol.
- sworn testimony that he tried to go too while the riot was already happening and was only stopped because the Secret Service refused to take him.
- knowledge of what his supporters did after they heard him speak (read: what they believed he was telling them to do.)
RubberDuckThere is a near 0 chance SCOTUS will rule beyond what is in front of them. And in this case that is the question if the states have the right to keep candidates off the ballots for the federal election based on article 14 section 3 as this is the justification that was chosen by colorado.
The subjects that will not be touched in this case:
- what defines an insurrection?
- what does it mean to “engage in” an insurrection?
- did trump meet the above requirements?
It is an interesting question, as this asks if the states have the right to determine the answers to the 3 questions above for themselves.
And this is what the main questions today seemed to be about. Because a "yes, states can define this themselves’ would lead to potentially different answers based on the states… and that seems to be an undesired outcome.
The probable outcome is “no states cannot decide” only if there is consensus on the insurrection can this be grounds for exclusion. But how would this then have worked during the post civil war era? As I said… interesting… I’m curious how they will answer… especially the motivation.
And this also allows the conservative judges to leave the 3 questions unanswered for another day…
Roberts basically layed it all out in saying other States will set up their own reasons to remove a candidate. (ie. Texas, Idaho)
We need a nationwide popular vote.
"We can't possibly rule that the 14th Amendment can be enforced, because then we might have to decide against the right-wing using complete bullshit instead of an actual, literal insurrection." - SCOTUS
I don’t recall hearing that when I listened to the arguments today, but I get your gist.