@washingtonpost
If the #FederalistSociety selected #Depublican puppets controlling #SCOTUS were any farther right they’d be wearing swastikas on their robes and starting each session with a cry of “sig heil” and a #Nazi salute to Führer Trump.
... They voted to limit government power
They pointed out that the government did not have legal authority to be so authoritarian.
You've got a weird take on Nazis.
Firstly, I don't think you have your facts right here, but setting that aside.
Assume for a moment that you're completely correct, that they were legislating, and that such legislation would be respected.
Even so, legislation opposing the authority of government and restraining the hands of executives who demand power is hardly the image most of us have of the Third Reich.
The "legislation" we've seen insisting that executives are bound by the democratic processes and can't unilaterally use prosecution to impose on citizens seems to go pretty strongly in the other direction.
@volkris What ruling are you talking about?
And SCOTUS accepting million dollar vacations, flights, perks, real estate deals and personal cash favors is a hallmark of fascism.
@bigheadtales Is it, though?
And here I thought the hallmarks of fascism were about folks in power coming down on the population.
I didn't think fascism was generally regarded as what's happening in peoples' personal finances.
When SCOTUS issues ruling after ruling restraining the police, I really don't care what their bank accounts look like.
@volkris Perhaps a specific example or two.
One of the key features of fascism is the authoritarian leadership uses government power to enrich themselves, often altering legal precedents and legislation to favor their partners in crime.
What rulings are you referring to?
I mean just go through the headline rulings of this term, from saying that the executive does not have unilateral authority to override congressional budgeting with student loans through saying that the executive does not have unilateral authority to drop the hammer on people who are involved with waterways.
This term has been strikingly anti-facism under definitions like yours.
It has been exactly citing legal reasons that the executive cannot enrich itself, I guess, without authority from the democratic process.
@volkris That’s progress, although I’m not sure what blocking what amounts to student aid has anything to do with police, and has nothing to do with the executive enrichment, nor how preventing the EPA from carrying out its mandate fights fascism.
But unilaterally ruling a website maker can discriminate against a class of people she hates by refusing services for websites she doesn’t make for someone who never asked for one thus having no injury is right out of the Nazi playbook.
They're not preventing the EPA from carrying out its mandate. That's just not factually correct. Instead they pointed out that the president has no legal authority to have the EPA bring down the force of government against us in the way that they did.
So when you say you're not sure how this stuff fights fascism, you need to go to the facts of the cases, where the president was claiming unilateral rights to act, often against civilians, and the court simply said no, the president is not above the law like that.
The facts on the ground are important, and it sounds like you are missing the facts in all of these cases.
The EPA is the government. If it cannot act, what is the recourse, mild suggestions?
Quite the claims, how was POTUS acting against civilians?
How are the police being restrained?
Facts are important. Feel free to hit me up with some.
I smell #Whataboutism.
The EPA can certainly act, as Congress has given it plenty of authority. The problem is that it was acting against people outside of the authority that the democratic process had allowed it.
If we DO want the EPA to have this authority, great, we can grant it that authority through the legislative process, and the Court would have had no problem with the action.
This has nothing to do with any other case. It's simply a matter of in this case the executive branch had been prosecuting people illegally.
It could be made legal through legislation, if we want, but at this point it was illegal prosecution.
@volkris
It sounds like you're supporting the #Republican controlled SCOTUS decision on the Clean Water Act.
The act the EPA had been administering the same way since 1977 and that was affirmed under Rapanos v US.
The act was overturned ignoring the act and its intention, 35 years of precedent, and citing a minority dissent in Rapanos.
I disagree, it was another in a long line of poor decisions by the corrupt majority.
You still haven't explained how the executive was 'enriching itself'.
Circling back, though, even if you're right and SCOTUS is wrong on that ruling, keep in mind that you're promoting the ability of the president to have sweeping power to prosecute citizens.
This is the kind of authoritarian thing you sounded so concerned about above.
Should the Court have ruled the way you preferred, based on precedent, it would have been promoting leadership using government power to impose leaders' wills on the people.
I think SCOTUS was correct in its reading of the statute, even in erring in the face of ambiguity not to allow the leadership that authoritarian power.
@volkris We can certainly disagree on the merits of that specific case, but the president can’t prosecute anyone, only the DOJ can. Although I think protecting our waterways is hardly authoritarian, in fact, largely the opposite unless the administration is somehow then turning the use of said contested waterways to their own profit.
You still haven’t explained how the executive was enriching itself or how this restricts police?
The DOJ works on behalf of the president in the US design of government.
The executive doesn't just prosecute people for no reason. He prosecutes to satisfy some incentive that he has, whether political or financial or to assert his own personal preferences on those he goes after.
And this ruling says that the executive can't legally send the police to enforce his policy assertions against you.
It sounds like you don't think something can be authoritarian without a significant profit on display, but I don't think that's a common element of that concept.
To me, it's authoritarian to have someone claiming authority over your life regardless of anything involving profit.
@volkris
The Attorney General works under the president, but the DOJ doesn't. That's not to negate the potential power and corruption that could exist. Look at the last administration.
But, again, the executive cannot prosecute people.
The ruling says the EPA cannot enforce the laws set out by Congress, the ruling provides direct financial benefit to outside parties by a #Republican SCOTUS that has benefitted financially from ultra-right-wing billionaires.
How would you replace government?
@volkris
So, how does the executive benefit from protecting our water supplies?
And how does it restrict the police?
The DOJ is an executive branch agency, and "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."
As an entity of the executive branch, the DOJ has no where it can work EXCEPT for under the president.
It has no legal authority but that granted as it executes the president's direction.
Otherwise you're talking about a policing force that exists outside the rule of law, which, talk about authoritarian and problematic!
@volkris
You are unwilling to understand that the DOJ derives its mandate from
federal law and the constitution, it operates separately from POTUS and does not take orders from the executive.
The AG, who does report to the POTUS, were he dishonest like William Barr, could exert pressure to benefit POTUS as he did to protect Donald Trump from prosecution, yet even he couldn't completely block the process.
The DOJ isn't the president's secret police. You sound like Kennedy.
Right. The Constitution that doesn't mention the DOJ, but *does* mention that "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
The design of the US government is exceedingly clear about this point because it was considered just so important that there be one person, a president, to be held accountable for the actions of his branch.
Should the DOJ misbehave, it's the president's neck on the line, for very good reason. He faces impeachment should he not keep the DOJ in line.
To disconnect the DOJ from that source of accountability is to set the federal police free from their constitutional limits.
It's a very dangerous proposal.
@volkris
Ah yes, it's all a grand conspiracy.
Evil deeds without motivation.
And the police are somehow prevented from doing anything about it.
OK, I give up.
@volkris it sounds like you’re referring to a specific case. I’m speaking more broadly about their decisions regarding settled law without any superseding precedent or creating rulings based upon a cases with no injured party or factual basis.
SCOTUS is an appeal court, not a lawmaking court, yet the Republican puppet majority are legislating from the bench.
Hitler knew he had to control the courts to raise the Nazi Third Reich. The GOP is following the same playbook.