xyzzy

joined 1 week ago
[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 16 points 1 hour ago

Yeah, of course he's guilty. I'm saying the accusation should be enough and they shouldn't have to wait for him to be convicted. But either way they should establish a policy around it.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 32 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

The Nobel committee should maybe not accept nominations from an accused ICC war criminal

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 2 points 5 hours ago

It's OK, they won't

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Birthright citizenship was not struck down. Universal injunctions were struck down, which means the Constitution will be applied in any cases where a state has a law on the books or a class action suit has been brought and a statewide injunction has been declared. These suits will wind their way through the courts and may possibly be heard by the Supreme Court.

I'd like to predict the USSC would decline to hear the case because there would be no discrepancies in prior rulings and the legal question would be so obvious, but I've given up trying to predict this court. In any event, I do think it's unlikely they would rule against birthright citizenship, since it would be plainly unconstitutional and there's no real wiggle room to reinterpret it differently.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I know you said "almost" too bad, but it would have been irreversible. Everything else they've done can be reversed with enough effort. I'm glad the American public can at least unite around our public lands.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I hope she gets the big seat someday.

That's not how it works in the US.

Edit: In many other countries the most senior justice becomes the chief justice by seniority, and I was saying that's not how it works in the US. But it looks like there have been four times when an associate justice has been "promoted" to chief justice, which I didn't realize. The first being John Rutledge in 1795 and Rehnquist being the most recent in 1986.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 10 points 2 days ago

It's just a cult, man. It's just as true and based in reality as a UFO transporting their souls to heaven.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 12 points 3 days ago

Still too many

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This is an .ml take. There are many, many writings where they opposed specific policies now undertaken by the Trump regime. You can start with the Declaration of Independence if you'd like.

Regardless, they're dead and we're not. Governments are for the living. (That's something they thought too, by the way.)

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 5 points 3 days ago

2 is right, but the reasons aren't for aggrandizement (at least, not mainly). It's for more power and the legitimacy of that power.

But it seems that they don't need to convene a convention if the Supreme Court and Congress can simply allow Trump to ignore laws with impunity.

[–] xyzzy@lemmy.today 102 points 3 days ago (4 children)

To echo another commenter, this article is a harrowing read—particularly the litany of reasons for declaring independence:

The Declaration pronounces these rights to be so important that it’s worth overthrowing a government over them. But one should not undertake revolution against a tyrannical government lightly, the Declaration says, going on to provide a massive litany of complaints as justification. In modern times, the full list was considered to be the boring part of this document, lacking the vim and vigor of “we hold these truths to be self-evident” and other such bars from the preamble. But this year, it’s become a… bracing read.

Listed among the reasons to boot the British monarch are:

  • “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”
  • “Obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”
  • “erect[ing] a multitude of New Offices, and sen[ding] hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people”
  • keeping “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures”
  • attempting “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
  • “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”
  • “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”
  • “excit[ing] domestic insurrections amongst us”

This was visceral:

As Donald Trump’s imperial presidency rolls forward across the wreckage of Congress on tank treads greased by the Supreme Court...

And it ends with this:

The Declaration of Independence has some notes about “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” its existing government “and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

But that was another time, right? Surely nobody wants to take the Founding Fathers’ original words literally. Their original meaning and original intent can’t just be superimposed on American life today, not when American values are very different from the values of 1776. In Trump’s America, the national ethos is simply a boot on your neck, forever.

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