Trump's Card

[ursus arctos]

Trump would definitely challenge the plain meaning of the Constitutional provision.

He has had his lawyers make more specious arguments already, the claim that a criminal prosecution following impeachment violates the prohibition on double jeopardy being perhaps the most prominent example.

Don Jr. was also asked last night if he would run in 2028 and refused to rule it out.

Kimberly Guilifoyle has always wanted to be First Lady.

A potential Newsom run against his ex-wife's current partner would be dystopian.

[G-Man]

Well, that's a relief. Neither of those two evil fucks will run for the presidency again.

In both cases, it's good to keep an eye on who'll be the VP.

[anton pulisov]

Don't term limits apply only to consecutive terms? In which case he could fight another election.

I hope I'm wrong on this.

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Can be elected twice max. Only way to get more than eight years is having been inaugurated as president as VP when a sitting president croaks. Then you can do ten years max. But still only two elections max.

[George C.]

I'm beginning to think this may be the last Trump election cycle. Like, even if he doesn't die, I mean.

If he wins, term limits rule him out forever after (yes, it will be horrible, but it will end). And if he loses, surely even the Republicans would start to move from under him, having lost out (or lost ground) in every election since 2016?

Read the odd article, that what could follow from the GOP grassroots l, as in the QAnon/Tea Party constituency, could be even worse...

[G-Man]

Don't term limits apply only to consecutive terms? In which case he could fight another election.

I hope I'm wrong on this.

[Plodder]

I'm beginning to think this may be the last Trump election cycle. Like, even if he doesn't die, I mean.

If he wins, term limits rule him out forever after (yes, it will be horrible, but it will end). And if he loses, surely even the Republicans would start to move from under him, having lost out (or lost ground) in every election since 2016?

[Plodder]

Couple of good opinion pieces on Trump's enduring appeal to his supporters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/o...s-economy.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/o...wa-caucus.html

[Satchmo Distel]

A second Trump term would be hilarious if the consequences weren't so horrific. To modify Marx, it would be tragedy and farce combined. Democracy destroyed not by a wily Machiavellian strategist but by a buffoon who just rides waves of historical coincidence.

[Nocturnal Submission]

The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump's standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.

"God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker,'" a voiceover intones over a minimalist piano track. "So God gave us Trump."

The former president, according to the narrator, is carrying out the will of God. He's "a shepherd to mankind" who will "fight the Marxists" with "arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67918713

[ursus arctos]

Let's see what they decide.

The extreme positions that he forced his advocate to take were transparently risible, but it still seems that they may limit the lower court order to a certain extent.

In which case, I can see SCOTUS deciding to just sit this one out.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I'm eagerly anticipating ursus's analysis of the US Court of Appeal's demolition of Trump's legal argument yesterday. Long may it continue.

[ursus arctos]

The Supreme Court has taken the Colorado case with a highly expedited (for them briefing and argument schedule).

First brief due in 10 days, oral argument set for 8 February.

[Discordant Resonance]

The dependence of Lancashire cotton mills on Southern exports also led Palmerston to flirt with recognition of the Confederacy in the early years of the war.

[Lang Spoon]

Though not her point at all, the South was pretty heavily free trade compared to the more protectionist friendly Northern States (who had way more in the way of nacsent industry to protect with tarrifs than the raw material export driven agrarian economy of the South).

[Satchmo Distel]

She knows that capitalism = "free labour", right? The north was more capitalist than the south, not vice versa. That's how the party of Lincoln came into being, to throw off the shackles of southern semi-feudalism, where rank was not based on merit. It makes her look like an economic dunce as well as a white supremacist.

[Sits]

You really couldn’t make it up.

[scratchmonkey]

Once she realized (or somebody in her campaign told her in no uncertain terms) that this was not exactly going over well, Haley released a statement saying "obviously it was about slavery, I wanted to talk about the lesser-known aspects of it" and then in the same breath claimed that the questioner was obviously a Democrat plant.

[ursus arctos]

Don't underestimate their cowardice.

Or the degree to which the intrinsic bureaucracy of their process creates delay.

[caja-dglh]

SCOTUS is going to have to give up on hiding from this pretty soon.

[ursus arctos]

The Maine Secretary of State has ruled that Trump is ineligible for the Maine ballot due to his having engaged in insurrection.

This will be appealed in the Maine courts and adds to the pressure on SCOTUS to issue a definitive ruling.

[ursus arctos]

I had the same thought, but as it was at a "town hall" for GOP primary voters in New Hampshire, there was no interviewer.

It remains striking that even the presumably arch-conservative questioner was taken aback.

[ad hoc]

I wish the Interviewer had simply finished off her list of freedoms ".... The freedom to own slaves"

[WOM]

I give you Nikky Haley

Nikki even.

[Eggchaser]

The anti Apu from the Simpsons answer there.

"Examiner: All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?

Apu : Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter...

Examiner : Wait, wait... just say slavery.

Apu : Slavery it is, sir."

[Levin]

I give you Nikky Haley