The bully pulpit is only bully if someone holds up a microphone

An Associated Press article from Monday posted on Daily Kos reported that the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ruled individual states, such as Colorado, could not bar a candidate from the presidential ballot under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. Congress must initiate that action. Part of me thinks, yeah, that decision makes sense. One branch of the federal government should make a decision like that. Back in the 1870s it was Congress that issues waivers for former Confederates to run for federal office. But another part of me thinks the Supremes chose the wrong branch. As in the case of impeachment having Congress decide means it is a political decision. And, as we’ve seen with the two nasty guy impeachments, a political decision may not match up with a legal and ethical decision. So perhaps the judicial branch should make the decision. I get that the Supremes don’t do trials – they review trials from lower courts. Appeals courts may not do trials either. But federal district courts do. They should hold a trial, or at least some sort of hearing, to weigh evidence that insurrection has been committed. The Colorado Supreme Court did weigh evidence that the nasty guy had committed an insurrection, but they’re not part of the federal court system. Once a district court analyses the evidence then the Appeals court and the Supremes could review it. And, yes, I mean an impartial Supreme Court, not the highly partisan court we have now. Chris Geidner of Law Dork takes a look at the decision and shows there is more than a unanimous ruling. The three Democratic appointees to the court – Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson – are well aware that the current Congress will do nothing to disqualify the nasty guy. Leaving that as the only option means the insurrection clause is nullified. So while there is full agreement that Colorado cannot remove a candidate from the ballot, there is a 6-3 split in saying Congress is the only body that can. Jon Richards posted a cartoon of the six conservative justices of the Supreme Court forming a football blocking line for the nasty guy. Mark Sumner of Kos listed the trials the nasty guy is facing and are delayed and discussed the one the Supreme Court can’t make go away. That’s the one in New York that accuses the nasty guy, through 34 of his 91 felony charges, of fraudulently inflating the value of his real estate holdings. It’s about falsifying business records to disguise hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. It is a criminal case, not a civil case, so penalties can be more than fines. It is scheduled to begin later this month. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted several interesting articles. First is one from Adam Serwer of The Atlantic discussing “originalism” which was a factor in the case.

[Americans] should understand that when Barrett herself says that the Constitution “doesn’t change over time and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it,” she is not telling the truth, but she would prefer you not point that out. This case reveals originalism as practiced by the justices for the fraud it actually is: a framework for justifying the results that the jurists handpicked by the conservative legal movement wish to reach. Americans should keep that in mind the next time the justices invoke originalism to impose their austere, selective vision of liberty on a public they insist must remain gratefully silent.

Kev quoted Andrew Atterbury of Politico on a case over DeathSantis’ “Stop Woke” Act. The 11th Circuit Court declared it unconstitutional.

“By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the Act targets speech based on its content,” Judge Britt C. Grant, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the opinion. “And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints — the greatest First Amendment sin.”

Kev quoted environmentalist Bill McKibbin’s interview with Climate Envoy John Kerry. McKibbin asked if there is now enough transition to clean energy baked in that the election of the nasty guy won’t matter. Kerry replied the nasty guy could create a significant amount of environmental damage. Even so, Ford and GM aren’t going to reverse their shift to electric vehicles. Timothy Snyder, writing his “Thinking About...” Substack, says nearly every issue domestic and international depends on Ukraine winning against Putin. Kev quoted two issues. Putin is the top fossil fuel oligarch. Ukraine’s resistance has accelerated the world’s green transition. Should Ukraine lose the world would have a hard time holding back the fossil fuel oligarchy and save the climate. The second issue is global hunger. Ukraine feeds about a half billion people. If Putin wins there will be a lot of hunger and suffering. Sumner discussed this election season and a basic problem. Polls show that Americans don’t know about the nasty guy’s fascist statements. But they do know that Biden is old. Some say making sure the country knows about the nasty guy’s dictatorial threats is the responsibility of Democrats.

However, there’s a problem with that angle. The Biden campaign owns no television stations or streaming services. Unlike Trump, it doesn’t own a social media platform. It doesn’t even own a newspaper. The bully pulpit is only bully if someone holds up a microphone. The Biden campaign and Democrats are dependent on the press to get the message out about Trump’s threat to the nation, and the press is simply failing. It’s not Joe Biden’s responsibility to inform the American public that Donald Trump has said he wants to be a dictator. ... Biden will do that. He does that. But if it doesn’t get reported, it doesn’t matter. ... Major press outlets may find it simpler to report polls showing American ignorance, but correcting that ignorance is their job. And they are not doing it. ... How many stories are there about Trump wanting to be a dictator, or his threats to judges, or his calls for vengeance, or his plans to purge the government, or even his demand that the Republican Party boot any remaining moderates? You can count them all, and you won’t even need one finger.

One of the features of Carnival in Germany is the Rose Monday parades two days before Ash Wednesday. The parades in Dusseldorf and Cologne are well known for their floats taking on political issues with strong sarcasm. After a reminder I went looking for some photos of floats this year’s parades. The Irish News has a good article and a few photos, including: Ukrainian president Zelensky on a float with the words (in English) “To be or NATO be.” The nasty guy with an American flag cut in the shape of a swastika. A Hamas fighter pushing Palestinians in front of an Israeli tank. The Stamford Advocate has a slide show of several more floats. Some of the slides are blank, so just click on the next arrow. One of these shows a Ukrainian soldier being stabbed by the nasty guy.