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Triple Espresso of Coffee Talk

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scoutyjones2

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NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION! YOU'RE THE COLLUSION!


The thing about laws is, if you control the Supreme Court, you can get almost anything declared "legal". Which is probably where this whole thing is coming from. Trump is probably aware that he's violated the Emoluments Clause (and many other laws, but a constitutional violation is probably the one that will stick), and knows the question will come before the Supreme Court someday. His fate in the balance. And he knows that Kennedy will likely need to recuse himself due to the connection of his son being the only banker on earth stupid enough to loan Trump money, leaving the verdict up to "chance". Get Kennedy out, replaced with a crony and it falls more to his favor.

And there isn't one Republican with the balls to stop it. Party above country is what they are presenting outwardly, and showing no signs of any behavior that is contradictory to that.
I mean is it illegal for a retiring Supreme Court justice to work with a sitting president to help decide his/her replacement...
 

Bloody Brian Burke

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NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION! YOU'RE THE COLLUSION!


The thing about laws is, if you control the Supreme Court, you can get almost anything declared "legal". Which is probably where this whole thing is coming from. Trump is probably aware that he's violated the Emoluments Clause (and many other laws, but a constitutional violation is probably the one that will stick), and knows the question will come before the Supreme Court someday. His fate in the balance. And he knows that Kennedy will likely need to recuse himself due to the connection of his son being the only banker on earth stupid enough to loan Trump money, leaving the verdict up to "chance". Get Kennedy out, replaced with a crony and it falls more to his favor.

And there isn't one Republican with the balls to stop it. Party above country is what they are presenting outwardly, and showing no signs of any behavior that is contradictory to that.
Okay, let's assume this to be true and Kavanaugh is only being appointed because he's against prosecution of presidents. He's still only 1 of 9 and only 1 of 5 conservative justices on the bench. If the other 4, only one of whom is also a Trump appointee, are also likely to vote in his favour should a matter like this come to the docket wouldn't the likelihood of literally any other conservative nominee also deciding in his favour be almost certain?

Unless people are upset he didn't nominate a liberal justice, which, duh? Otherwise, even if he did promise Kennedy to nominate Kavanaugh, at least he was taking that advice from a 30 year supreme court jurist and not fucking Jared Kushner. This hardly seems like something worth creating another soft-crust controversy over that nobody will remember come November and beyond.
 

sabresfaninthesouth

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Okay, let's assume this to be true and Kavanaugh is only being appointed because he's against prosecution of presidents. He's still only 1 of 9 and only 1 of 5 conservative justices on the bench. If the other 4, only one of whom is also a Trump appointee, are also likely to vote in his favour should a matter like this come to the docket wouldn't the likelihood of literally any other conservative nominee also deciding in his favour be almost certain?

Unless people are upset he didn't nominate a liberal justice, which, duh? Otherwise, even if he did promise Kennedy to nominate Kavanaugh, at least he was taking that advice from a 30 year supreme court jurist and not fucking Jared Kushner. This hardly seems like something worth creating another soft-crust controversy over that nobody will remember come November and beyond.
I think it would depend on whether Kennedy retired of his own volition with assurances from Trump vs. Trump approaching him and asking him to retire with assurances that he could pick his own replacement.

Kennedy wasn't a reliable Trump vote on the SC, so if Trump was asking him to retire this year so that he would definitively retire under a Republican POTUS and Senate (i.e., in case they lose the Senate in the fall), that would be a problem.
 

Bloody Brian Burke

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I think it would depend on whether Kennedy retired of his own volition with assurances from Trump vs. Trump approaching him and asking him to retire with assurances that he could pick his own replacement.

Kennedy wasn't a reliable Trump vote on the SC, so if Trump was asking him to retire this year so that he would definitively retire under a Republican POTUS and Senate (i.e., in case they lose the Senate in the fall), that would be a problem.
Why though? Is there a rule/law prohibiting it?
 

elocomotive

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sabresfaninthesouth

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Why though? Is there a rule/law prohibiting it?
Not explicitly that I'm aware of, but that's because it's something of a Catch 22. Aside from retirement and death, the only mechanism the Constitution allows for determining if/when a SC justice leaves office is impeachment. So without amending the Constitution, there can't be a law for this.

There have been plenty of judges who have chosen to retire under a president that they believed would appoint a justice with similar judicial principles. But if that gets reversed and a sitting justice is specifically asked to retire by a president and incentivized to do so with certain promises of cronyism, it's a scary prospect depending on the specifics.
 

Comeds

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This morning I had to use my phone as alarm. It's usually off overnight so I do not get any notifications or anything. Today my Fitbit buzzed at 5 to alert me that Justin Timberlake is supporting England in the world cup
 

forty_three

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q39e0uabw6911.jpg
 

Bloody Brian Burke

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57 German soldiers died in Afghanistan fighting a war initiated by the United States invoking NATO Article 5. Over 1000 non-US NATO troops died in Afghanistan fighting on behalf of the United States' invoking of Article 5. And let's not start with Iraq.

Send Trump a bill for all that military spending on his country's behalf. That should shut him up real quick.

 

dare2be

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It's all about the money.

I'm so sick of the soundbite president.

Idiocracy is not just a movie, it's a documentary.
 

jstewismybastardson

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i fell asleep with the tv on in the bedroom and woke up in the middle of the night and an infomercial for real estate flipping seminars hosted by a reality tv "star" was on and it seemed very similar to what you see at a trump rally ... only thing missing was overt racism :noidea:
 

Bloody Brian Burke

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It's all about the money.

I'm so sick of the soundbite president.

Idiocracy is not just a movie, it's a documentary.
And that's fine, for the most part. The whole trade war thing? I get it. A lot of countries have a lot of barriers to the entry of American-made goods and the more I see the more I wonder how the hell previous admins let it go on for so long (not that there aren't many similar issues with American tariffs and taxes).

What I cannot understand is every NATO leader hearing this crap and showing restraint when he is literally never going to do so. The US military utilizes over 200 locations on German territory for their operations. Why doesn't Merkel bring that up when he's talking about his 2% and claiming Germany has some sort of allegiance to Russia based solely on the fact they *checks notes* require energy to function as an economy? Why hasn't it been mentioned that allegiance to the United States made every NATO country a target for Islamic extremists and resulted in billions having to be spent by each country on intelligence and security?

International leaders are acting as fecklessly as the Democratic Party in dealing with Donald Trump and like the Democrats there will be no reward at the end. He wins and you lose is the game he's playing and you're all losing.
 

elocomotive

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And that's fine, for the most part. The whole trade war thing? I get it. A lot of countries have a lot of barriers to the entry of American-made goods and the more I see the more I wonder how the hell previous admins let it go on for so long (not that there aren't many similar issues with American tariffs and taxes).

What I cannot understand is every NATO leader hearing this crap and showing restraint when he is literally never going to do so. The US military utilizes over 200 locations on German territory for their operations. Why doesn't Merkel bring that up when he's talking about his 2% and claiming Germany has some sort of allegiance to Russia based solely on the fact they *checks notes* require energy to function as an economy? Why hasn't it been mentioned that allegiance to the United States made every NATO country a target for Islamic extremists and resulted in billions having to be spent by each country on intelligence and security?

International leaders are acting as fecklessly as the Democratic Party in dealing with Donald Trump and like the Democrats there will be no reward at the end. He wins and you lose is the game he's playing and you're all losing.

The other element is that our spending on the military is way out of whack with what is needed and how you fight and win wars in the modern era. If you want other countries to dial up their spending, then ACTUALLY dialing back your spending and weapons to support them is a great way to do that. But Trump has done the opposite of that. Partly because military spending falsely props up the economy at the expense of deficits. So there is an issue here in that the military spending and the trade deficit are largely unrelated issues. And the second issue is that Trump is not taking the actual action that might encourage the counter action he wants.

At the end of the day, we as voters should focus more on the government/budget deficit (a parameter largely within the control of the President and our government leaders) rather than economic indicators and trade deificits (parameters only partly within the control of the President and our government leaders).
 

dash

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Well, you guys want European nations to spend more on NATO defense, that means cutbacks elsewhere...

 
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