Clay Ranck

Opinion | Once Trump leaves office, the Senate can’t hold an impeachment trial The Constitution only allows for the impeachment trial of a sitting president, not a former president.

I’m still kinda pissed that back in 2021, Luttig acted like it it would have been horrible if Trump tried to adjudicate being disqualified from office and gave cover to Republicans pretending like they didn’t need to do their constitutional duty. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

The Republican justices are partisan operatives who are pretending to act as impartial interpreters of the law and the constitution, and I think we need to understand that we’re way beyond that now. SCOTUS is a political entity, and has been for a long time.

A court that kept people in their jobs while they figured out how they wanted to decide that Humphrey’s Executor was no longer valid could be considered to be legitimate, but doing it in the judicial dark of night with no agreement among themselves as to the actual legal reasoning is clown shit.

Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

In an era when the filibuster wasn’t what it is in the modern era, why create an exclusion for people appearing on the ballot that requires a supermajority to overrule? So a bare majority can impose a constitutional “disability” that a 2/3 majority is required to overrule? It makes no sense.

But that’s actually the very situation that was created by the decision in Trump v. Anderson. A majority in Congress can declare anyone an insurrectionist and ineligible to run for office and SCOTUS’s decision would embrace that outcome.

I’ve been assembling a thread of Kavanaugh Stops as I come across them. bsky.app/profile/clay...

Bluesky outages reported in the last 24 hours

Momentary weirdness that seems to have passed.

Trump in the Oval Office with a map of a hurricane showing a sharpie bulge in Alabama which wasn’t in the current hurricane path cone

It’s this sharpiegate, which is even dumber.

Is Bluesky down?

If you come across any others, give me a cc so I can add it to the thread. I’m looking specifically for US citizens or permanent residents who get detained for seemingly no reason, and especially when law enforcement gets violent or people are detained for long periods of time.

#kavanaughstops

Which is also something that can (sometimes) happen (with mixed results) in a formerly relatively poor country clawing their way up the economic ladder, but is also an insane strategy for the wealthiest and most powerful democratic country on the planet (until we fuck it up).

Tall buildings create shade. Just sayin’.

(I’m not actually saying the facts are the same in case any lawyers can’t take a joke)

I’ve commented on this being a Kavanaugh Stop, but I also want to take a moment to note the irony of detaining a guy for no reason whatsoever and assaulting him and his name is Miranda. Didn’t we already do this legal case? Am I experiencing déjà vu?

I’ve been assembling a thread of Kavanaugh Stops as I come across them. bsky.app/profile/clay...

If you come across others that aren’t already in my thread, let me know. I’m trying to collect these, especially the most egregious examples.

a man is dancing in a hallway and saying `` that 's what i 'm talkin about ! '' Alt: Slater from Dazed and Confused saying `` that 's what i 'm talkin about ! ''

Slater from Dazed and Confused understood the true vision of the Founding Fathers.

“The whole country back then was getting high. Let me tell you, man, 'cos, 'cos, 'cos [George Washington] knew. He was on to something, man. He knew that it would be a good cash crop for the southern states, man.”

Thread

“If the person is a U. S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.” -Brett Kavanaugh (read the replies to this one for more of the story where this guy was threatened with a dog and violently assaulted) bsky.app/profile/patd...

Communism

1 Me: He froze like a deer in the headlights. 2 Deer: Okay tough guy, what would you do? Me: It’s just an expression. 3 Deer: No, no, no. You’re standing there, suddenly all you see is a blinding light. What’s your plan? I want to hear it. 4 Me, frowning: I would freeze. Deer: I fucking thought so.

This is one of my favorite comics we've made.

Villainy piled upon villainy. A must read:

“Donald Trump has declared himself ‘immortal godking of the known universe,’ but experts say that may not be legal.”

He just had one in April

TIL that Macedonia has its own Ian Miles Cheong.

"The presence of plywood at this construction site is evidence that while Trump's rhetoric might be hyperbolic, there is an element of truth behind his recent statements."