It’s important to remember, as our old pal Gil O’Teen tells us, that rights have never been given freely in the history of this planet. Those in power will do whatever it takes to keep that power.
Mind you, I personally am not in favor of violence to get change unless it is absolutely necessary (like you live in a literal dictatorship and there is no other option). But in a democracy, you should be able to get change with disruptive protests, civil disobedience, lawsuits, and non-violent illegal means (such as whistleblower activities).
It’s also important to remember that our human rights to be treated fairly and justly have always existed. Whenever I hear someone say something like, “Well, men gave women the right to vote,” I reply “If I steal your car and then give it back to you, does that mean I should be congratulated and rewarded for giving it to you?”
So yeah, fight for your rights. It’s the only way you can get them.
Hunter Biden is on trial as I write this, accused of buying a gun illegally (while he had a drug problem).
Trump fans who screamed about how Trump’s guilty finding was only a political stunt and that the system is unfair are thrilled that Hunter is being prosecuted which shows the system is fair.
Hypocrisy was never a problem with them.
Most of the liberals I know agree that Hunter should be treated the same as anyone else under the law, like Trump was.
These conservatives, by the way, are the same people who think there should be no gun restrictions whatsoever but are thrilled that Hunter is being prosecuted for a gun control law. (You know perfectly well if one of their own had these charges, they’d be screaming about an injustice.)
This is one of her art pieces. It’s made out of dryer lint. No, really. Check out her web page.
Here’s how this one works:
They want to buy something from you. You give them the price. It’s usually for a lot of money, because that way, you’re very excited to have sold something for such a huge amount. That makes you more willing to make sure it happens.
Then they send you a message saying they paid. You then get an email that looks like it’s from PayPal (it isn’t) that says your account can’t accept this money because the account needs to be updated to a business account. “Once updated, the money will be available to you. Please deposit $500 into your account to activate the business account.”
You contact the person and they say, “OK, I’ll pay to update the account and then when you get confirmation that it has been approved and my payment has gone through, you can refund that money to me.” (Or, alternatively, you are provided with a link to PayPal so you can make the payment yourself, but of course, the link is a fake one that doesn’t go to PayPal.)
If you do this, you’ll get another fake email saying the account is active and the payment went through. You’re then asked to refund the $500 to the person, who also gets your credit card and banking information that they can use to hack into your account later. See how it works?
Heidi and I do have fun taunting the scammers though before finally calling them out and blocking them. Heidi then publicly posts the scammer’s name and email on her Instagram page to warn others.
Remember: the internet is full of scammers. Always be wary.
Sometimes people ask me legal questions about how certain conservative judges make their decisions when it seems to run counter to general legal policies like standing and precedence and the answer is simple:
They don’t give a fuck.
They don’t care about the law. They were appointed by Trump and his cultist followers in state houses and the Senate to accomplish certain goals and if the law gets in the way, just to ignore it.
That’s why it must be really hard to be a law professor these days. You have to say “Here’s the law, unless some judge wants to completely ignore it.”
This just confirms the main theme from my book about the Constitution that came out a few years ago: All law is politics. It’s just so much more political these days than it has ever been in my lifetime.
This article is depressing so here’s a picture of my cat River Song when she was a kitten. You’re welcome
I find it awfully interesting that there is so much discussion about the ludicrous claims Donald Trump and his lawyers are making about him essentially having total immunity because he used to be President of the United States. Full disclosure, I’m not a lawyer, but I do have a degree in History and I feel like a pretty important precedent was set on this kind of thing already in our history. Gather ‘round, folks. It’s story time!
Let me tell you a tale about a member of the executive branch at the highest levels of power blatantly committing the highest of crimes and facing the consequences for it. No, I’m not talking about Richard Nixon — he wisely bowed to reality and resigned before being hit by that particular legal freight train. No, there’s an even better precedent in our nation’s history. We need to go back waaay further than the Nixon Era though. All the way to 1804, in fact. I’m talking about Aaron Burr.
Most folks today know who Aaron Burr was because of the spectacular musical Hamilton. Or, if they’re old enough, perhaps from a famous Got Milk commercial that was aired a lot in the 90’s. But a lot of history nerds like me already knew about him. For those who have somehow missed the musical (you’d be forgiven for missing or forgetting about the commercial) a brief recap.
This is what Burr really looked like, although history doesn’t record what his singing voice was like or whether he smiled more and talked less
Aaron Burr was an orphaned scion of a rather well respected family. He served in the Revolutionary war and was considered a bonafide war hero. After the revolution he went into the legal profession and, eventually, politics where he ran in the election of 1800 against Thomas Jefferson to be the third President of the United States. He lost, of course, which is why you’ve never heard of President Burr. However, back then the Constitution called for the runner up in the Presidential Election to be Vice President under the guy who had just beaten him. (As an aside, even the Founding Fathers realized this maybe wasn’t the best idea and it was promptly amended in time for the election of 1804.)
Vice President Burr was awfully salty about his loss and blamed Alexander Hamilton for it, as Hamilton had supported Jefferson in the election despite the fact that the two had always been political enemies. This was compounded when Burr, realizing Jefferson would not select him to be his running mate under the new VP selection process, ran for Governor of New York and was defeated, thanks again in part to Hamilton. This naturally led to the famous duel where on July 11, 1804, a sitting United States Vice President shot a man and killed him (probably with less singing involved than Lin-Manuel Miranda implied, though). It was the 18th century equivalent of standing on Fifth Avenue and shooting a man.
And so it came to be that the Vice President of the United States became a fugitive. The states of New Jersey (where the duel took place) and New York (where Hamilton subsequently died) both issued warrants for the arrest of Burr, who decided it would be a fine time to visit his daughter in South Carolina for an extended period of time. Burr would go on to be officially indicted by a New Jersey grand jury.
Burr never saw trial for the death of Hamilton though because he still had enough friends in high places to pull strings and because there was a legal complication of the circumstances. New York had strict laws against dueling, but the duel had taken place in New Jersey which didn’t. Not to mention that by this point, three years had passed and Burr was facing a whole heap of new legal trouble and had been arrested for his part in a conspiracy to secure a chunk of American and Mexican territory and proclaim it as a new nation backed by England. So, in the face of actual treason, the legally complicated murder trial was just kind of forgotten about.
All this is to say that it seems pretty clear by Burr’s legal woes that the answer to the question of “can the highest levels of executive power be held responsible for crimes committed” is a pretty clear and definitive “YES.” Burr was subject to arrest, indictment, and trial for crimes committed as Vice President AND after he left office. The only time any arguments of executive privilege came up was in Burr’s treason trial when the defense wanted documents from President Jefferson’s administration and Jefferson cited Executive Privilege … and lost! Justice John Marshall famously denied Jefferson’s claim and ordered the president to supply the requested documents.
At no point did anyone claim that Burr should have immunity for crimes he committed while in office or afterwards just because he used to be Vice President. In fact, Justice Marshall’s ruling that Jefferson had to produce the subpoenaed documents was specifically viewed as setting the precedent that the President himself is not above the law and needs to accede to the judiciary.
And it’s not like a whole lot of interpretation of the Constitution was left to guesswork back in those days. There wasn’t a whole lot of “oh, what did the Framers mean when they wrote this?” This was 1807, the Framers of the Constitution were still alive (the biggest hint of that is the fact that the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence was President at the time.) Surely they’d have chimed in with their two cents if the interpretation wasn’t what they intended. Or even changed things afterwards like they did with the process of electing a Vice President!
The arrests and trial of Aaron Burr told us 220 years ago everything we need to know about the ludicrous claims of immunity for Donald Trump today. No one is above the law, no matter what their office. Period.
I’m just hoping that nobody tries to write a hip-hop musical about this mess though because the thought of someone rapping in Trump-speak is making my brain hurt.
Hoyce is a Boston-based transplant from the Pocono Mountains. Although he has a degree in History with an emphasis in Political Science, most of his writing tends to be for fantasy gaming or occasional posts on Facebook.
Guiliani gave a bitching press conference after losing his damages trial, saying “Did you notice the judge didn’t allow us to present any evidence in our defense?” Um, yes, because you already had that trial and lost and this one was only to determine how much you’d have to pay. If he was a lawyer, he’d know that.
During the press conference, he repeated the lies, once more admitted he had no evidence to support the lies, and in essence, committed the crime again.
This has never been before the Court in our entire history, but that may be because, I dunno, we’ve never had a President charged with multiple felonies before.
If the Supreme Court agrees with Trump, then I guess it sets a precedent.
Biden: “Great! FBI, get rid of Trump and oh, the entire cast of Fox News. What are you gonna do? I’m immune!”
These idiots never consider the fact that anything they get like this works for us as well. “Oh, you think the Vice President can just nullify an election? Wonderful! Kamala, nullify all the Republicans who just got re-elected to the House.”
This includes a majority of independents, who are needed to win any election.
But the GOP lives in a bubble, and they only talk to each other, and they all think Trump is popular among Americans.
I remember pointing this out to a Trump person on Facebook a while ago who said something similar. “No,” I replied. “A majority voted against him the first time; he never even reached a 50% approval rating his entire term; he lost the House and the Senate; and then he lost his second election by an even larger margin. He has never been supported by a majority of Americans.” I was unfriended immediately despite everything I said being true and not controversial.
Trump posts “Never Surrender” immediately after surrendering
Except, of course, Article III of the Constitution, which allows Congress to regulate the Supreme Court:
“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.“
But hey, why should we expect someone on the Supreme Court to have read the Constitution? What, like that’s their job or something?
An atheist inmate in West Virginia sued the court system because he was forced to attend substance abuse counseling which required him to “accept Jesus” in order to graduate from the program. He refused, and they wouldn’t release him when he would normally have been released because of it.
It’s amazing how often certain Christians scream about how they’re being oppressed when I can only find examples in the opposite direction. And every example they like to give is just us fighting a defense against them.
Mind you, while this case may have been brought by atheists, it’s a win for everyone of every belief and no belief.
ventrellaquest.com 