Are you really not aware that one of the primary jobs of Congress is to literally define what a crime is? That's what laws are. There is literally a statute (several actually) passed by Congress that does define what murder, fraud, and larceny are. That's the cornerstone of due process. A crime isn't a crime unless there is a law being broken. You have failed your constitution test.
Tinidril
joined 1 year ago
What the fuck are you on about now? This has nothing to do with prosecuting Trump and his conspirators. You seem to have me pigeonholed as a Trump supporter or something. I'm commenting on a single ruling on a subject that is just as likely to damage Biden as Trump.
Republicans say Biden is guilty of insurrection for allowing illegal aliens across the border, and will happily remove him from every ballot they can because of it. It's absolute bullshit of course, but Republicans aren't shy about passing bullshit or ruling based on bullshit. If that shit show sounds great to you, then you go ahead and override the court and send it to the states.
And what does the constitution say about who decides when someone has participated in an insurrection? Exact constitutional text please.
That's from an opinion piece, not that anyone could tell by your reference to it. I've already explained quite clearly where I disagree.
BTW: Pasting an image of text with no link or citation really sucks. It's lazy, and forces others to go search out the source.
What does this have to do with the topic we are discussing? Yeah, that was complete bullshit. If the argument is that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, then I'm with you. However, this particular ruling probably wouldn't be impacted by a change in the makeup of the court since, as I pointed out, it was a 9-0 ruling. Replace all three of Trump's nominees with judges that agree with you, and you still lose 6-3.
Personally I think Biden should have stuffed the court with one judge for each Federal district (13). Even if he did that, and all the new judges took your perspective, you still lose 9-4.
No, they really didn't.
I am specifically talking about the current situation. It's no good to defeat Trump if we don't also defeat Trumpism.
Judicial review is always about policymaking. That is frankly a massive subject. Where the constitution and/or legislation is unclear, yes, it typically falls to the courts to interpret. However, that's not even terribly relevant here, since what the court did is throw it to Congress to make the policy decision.
Nothing here says that one party gets to define anything. Also, the court did not say that the Senate must agree by a 2/3 majority, only that Congress must decide. The text of the constitution does clearly make section 3 self executing but, unhelpfully, it does not tell us who determines that an insurrection occurred or whether a particular person is guilty of participation.
It clouds the issue even further that the previous vote failed in the Senate, but would have passed by a simple majority. It could well be that some who voted in favor of impeachment might have voted otherwise if a simple majority were required. I think a simple majority should be sufficient in this case, but that vote never occurred.
Personally, I'm not sure it would be a good thing to remove Trump from the ballot. I think it will be far better for the nation to defeat him at the ballot box. If Trump can actually win, then we are doomed anyways.
Trump is uniquely bad as a human being, but he is not uniquely bad as a potential Republican president. There are plenty of Republicans that would be worse, simply because they are competent and, for many milquetoast Americans, far more persuasive.
This was actually a 9-0 decision. Being a cynic is definitely justified by the state of our government, but you should have some ideas what your being cynical about.
I'm not sure I even disagree with the idea that it needs to be done at the Federal level. If individual states can do it, then Republicans will start declaring that everything they don't like is an insurrection (as their rhetoric already does on many issues) and remove Democrats from ballots.
Whether that means it has to be the legislature and what that looks like are different questions.
14th didn't say it's up to Congress either. The Supreme Court said that, and now it's up to Congress to decide what that looks like. The constitution lets the legislative bodies setup their own rules for how a lot of things function.
Read your argument above then read this response again. You are arguing that the court is overriding what the constitution says, then arguing that it doesn't matter that the constitution says nothing on the subject. Your mind is a really weird place.