Matthew

Do you think he has policy thoughts on things, beyond just slogans designed to pander to potential supporters? It's true that he markets himself as someone who is a moderate and who will find middle ground on tough issues. In practice though, his actions as president didn't show much nuance or understanding of any issue.

Ok, interesting. So when you say "Harris will probably start a second civil war" do you mean that you would start commiting violence? Or who?

So, how is any of that "starting a war?"

Interesting imagination. In this fantasy scenario, why would someone who wins an election start a war? And how exactly how would someone go to war against "the left?"

Pot, meet kettle.

Yawn.

Obviously. My assertion is that Thomas and Crow have a patron-client relationship. Being owned is a more general colloquialism as I'm sure you know. Decades of so-called gifts totalling in the millions is a fact, and not just from Crow but from a whole network of elite patrons.

You always respond to facts with meaningless non-sequitur generalizations. It's ok to go around and just give your uniformed gut reaction to things like you do. But I think you think you're doing more than that.

I still haven't, except here in response to your own unsolicited thoughts on the subject. Donald Trump's aging decline is way down on the list of his major flaws as a political leader.

Nah, polls showed that a super high percentage of democrats (like 80%) thought biden was too old, including myself and everyone I know. He's been an ok president (I give him a B-) but he was never in my top 50 of possible democrat party candidates. If what you mean is that i don't care enough about age to vote for Donald trump, that is absolutely true. I have voted for republicans on multiple occasions. But I would vote for jar of pickles over that guy.

Exactly, as they are required to in all other federal courts.

Ah Im shocked. You're one of the better contributors here, though that's a low bar. But I have so far yet to see you have an earnest free-thinking nuanced opinion on any issue that isn't just a upholding of the party line. I'll keep my hopes up though.

Correct, and as you can see the argument in that statement is about WHY the focus is on trumps age now. Alrhough for the record, Trump is too old, Biden is too old, chuck grassly is too old, Nancy Pelosi is too old, chuck schumer is too old, Mitch McConnell is too old, etc. Its still a dumb point though. Like *shaking fist in the air* "Why didn't you say you cared about the candidates age back when both candidates were super ancient?!"

For example, Crow's wealth comes from one of the biggest housing development companies in the US. He's done decades of political activism to undermine regulation of that industry. A very large percent of federal cases involving the Housing and Urban Development regulations used the Chevron Deference principle to uphold regulations. So when the Supreme Court struck down that principle in Loper v Romando, Harlan Crow was a direct beneficiary and stakeholder. Even the CEO of his company is a leading donor to interest groups pushing it through the court system, such as the National Mulifamily Housing Council. I do agree with you that simply giving a gift can be fine, even an expensive one. But I would argue that Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas have all the halmarks of a patron-client relationship. There is a long pattern of dependency, lavish gifts, and support for the family's expenses etc. Allowing a billionaire to essentially own a supreme court member as his patron is obviously something that a functioning republic with rule of law would have rules against.

Nope. You're not doing that. To refersh your memory. Hodad made the point that Vance as VP is all the more concerning to a president who would be old and unhealthy. You replied with an irrelevant comparison to biden being worse.

Quite a few authors have documented examples to the contrary. None of which would matter to you, I'm sure.

In your imagination, why would this comparison to Biden that you keep trying to push matter to voters in the 2024 election?

The current trend of unprincipled right wing demagoguery, where obviously false misinformation talking points become dogma and parroted slogans far predates trumps days in politics. I think the first time I started to witness it was 90s AM talk radio, in the politics surrounding the iraq war, and really heigtening as the so-called tea party movement turned into a anti-Obama movement.

I was quoting you lol. Trump is old and mentally declining all by himself without any help from Biden.

Obviously it's corruption for a judge to take expensive gifts from people who have business before the court, or making decisions in cases in which the justice has a direct interest. Lower courts have strict rules against this stuff and the Supreme Court does not.

Joe Biden is irrelevant to the issue of Donald Trump being an elderly man in decline.

A more realistic interpretation is that it's a lame duck president thinking about his legacy. The presidency has no constitutional power to change how the courts work. But he does have the power to try to lead a legislative initiative. If there was any political gamesmanship involved it would be in forcing House Republicans to reflexively side with the pro-corruption status quo as you are currently doing.

The sacred tradition of taking bribes from billionaires? I'm ok with ethics rules for everyone in government. And I'm ok with term limits for everyone in government. Why would anyone be opposed to these two things?

Hm I can't get past the first four existentially disturbing words of the question. It's easy to think of someone else as a distant abstraction. But to imagine myself looking through those sad, beleaguered eyes. What thoughts would I think with his tortured, masturbatory nervous system.

That's a good point and I do agree with this. But just because he's not as bad doest mean his own particular state of decline is irrelevant.