volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@micchiato@mastodon.social I don't know why you think expanding the court would make a difference when the decision was unanimous.

Sounds like it would be a 12-0 decision instead of 9-0.

@LouisIngenthron That's not at all what SCOTUS ruled.

Not only do presidents remain susceptible to legal penalty under this ruling, but the ruling even laid out the path for Congress to impose additional penalties against any president who would commit insurrection.

@Stinson_108 not so much Trump's hands since he's not in Congress...

@WorMP3 Well, impeachment or, more realistically, the statutes regarding the counting of electoral votes.

Congress remains free to simply not recognize Trump as eligible for office, if it wants, setting aside any EC ballot that lists him.

@SonofaGeorge Well they decided that states CAN remove a candidate from a presidential ballot but it has to be done through a federal process for a federal election.

The presidential immunity question is a very different sort of issue, so there's nothing strange about the two different things being handled in two different ways.

@Nonilex Well not quite.

It's not that decision is put in their hands, but that they can set up the process to make the decision.

@bigheadtales No, that's not what the court said at all.

Yes, there's a lot of people putting out falsehoods about what's happened at the court, and we need to push back on those misleading claims.

@vij Well it's really the opposite.

It's not that the court opened a green lane but that it prevented states from closing it without federal authority.

@RejoinEU firstly, that has absolutely nothing to do with the Supreme Court ruling today. They were not addressing that question. It could very well be insurrection and yet the Supreme Court is pointing out that it's not up to states to make that determination.

Secondly, by the definition posted, it was not insurrection as it was attacking the wrong branch of government. You can't control the government through the legislature.

@hermitary@mastodon.world it's pretty orwellian to describe allowing more ballot access to be against democracy.

The Supreme Court is wrong, but it's pro-democracy, not anti.

The design of the US system puts guardrails around democracy and the Supreme Court is wrong to allow democracy to run amok. But let's be clear that this is a pro democracy ruling even though it shouldn't be.

@blogdiva well no, since the president doesn't have authority to be a dictator.

Yes, the president has all the authority of the office. No, it is not an authority of the office to declare dictatorship.

@McPatrick in the arguments the point was made that there is a difference: something like age is generally uncontested while something like guilt for insurrection is contestable and judiciable.

Except in outlier cases, every state will agree on the age of a candidate. But different states might conclude differently on the question of guilt for insurrection.

That's the difference.

@footsteps not quite, I don't think.

It's not that it's up to Congress to remove the person, but rather it's up to Congress to create some process by which the person would be deemed ineligible for election.

Congress should not pass a bill saying Trump is ineligible. Rather, Congress should pass a bill laying out a process to sort out eligibility in general that would apply to every single candidate.

@Teri_Kanefield @StephanieJones

@originlbookgirl@mastodon.online Dems put many of those justices on the Court, though.

Voting straight ticket Dem supports many of the exact politicians who led to this result.

@ClaraListensprechen4 The two are very different types of cases, though, one directly implicating constitutional matters and the other involving matters of criminal statutory conduct.

They are really apples and oranges.

@goodreedAJ Well why would court challenges be the appropriate venue for remedy?

The constitution seems pretty clear that the running of elections is a matter for the other branches.

@Teri_Kanefield

@GNUmatic what specific argument do you think is wrong?

It's one thing to just say the court is losing it, but specifically, where do you think their reasoning is wrong?

@darnell every state gets to run its own elections, so a decision to strike him from the ballot is not a decision made at the national level.

And the decision that was handed down today, while wrong, doesn't do anything to change that.