• Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
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    9 hours ago

    It’s because Trump thinks that being the president means he owns everything now. He thinks this country is his personal possession, that every building and monument in it belongs to him personally. He thinks the white house is his literal house instead of the people’s house that we allow him to live in.

    Unfortunately, his being wrong doesn’t seem very relevant to the current political and judicial reality.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    When the judge asked the DOJ to clarify that nothing could be done if the President ordered the Statue of Liberty bulldozed, the DOJ lawyer said, quote: "I think that’s right, yes.”

    As a legal argument, “I think that’s right, yes” has about as much substance as, “Sure, whatever.”

    • nullspace@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      It would certainly be representative of the times. What I’m interested in are contradictions MAGA supporters come up with to justify such a thing.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        MAGA supporters don’t care about Lady Liberty. She’s a Big City Liberal with a woke sissy poem about letting in illegals.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      I doubt that this is political theater. The judge — who is a neutral party here, and introduced the question — is asking a pretty straightforward question, testing the argument that the lawyer is making. “If your argument that Trump can rebuilt the wing of the White House holds, it seems that it’d entail X (where X is something that it seems like we wouldn’t want). Is that true?”

      If you read court transcripts, this isn’t an uncommon thing for a judge to do.

  • ryper@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    That might not even be the weirdest hypothetical DOJ has argued this year.

    Trump DOJ Refuses to Rule Out Second Amendment Right to Nuclear Weapons

    Now, to be clear, DOJ lawyers do not argue that nuclear weapons are currently protected by the Second Amendment. But that is based on the view that nukes could not become popular enough to be protected, not because of the unmistakable threat to public safety that civilian access to nuclear warheads would create. Under this dangerous logic, if nuclear weapons become more common, all bets are off: Civilians might then be constitutionally entitled to acquire and possess them. And though the Trump DOJ’s discussion of nuclear weapons may seem farfetched, the same logic would apply to a grenade launcher or bazooka.

  • Gerudo@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    This is so stupid. Do you even know how big that bulldozer would have to be?

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      They’ll file a lawsuit after it’s demolished and find out in 4-6 years the statue shouldn’t have been demolished.

      The admin will say it was a matter of national interest to be demolished, supreme court will give them a double thumbs up, and well - what could have been done.

      • lectricleopard@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Im surprised we didn’t just wake up to the news it was scrapped for the copper overnight and the money is going to a hotel he plans to build in its place.

        • cannedtuna@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          It’s obvious the money would go to cover a gold plated statue of himself giving a double thumbs up.

          The plaque will be replaced with:

          “Give me your whites, your rich, your business class looking to exploit the poor”

          This of course assumes there’d be anything so poetic inscribed. More likely it would read:

          “Poor? Desperate? Foreign? Turn back now or be shot on sight”

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        15 hours ago

        *national security

        Trump is exploiting all of the “except for an emergency” language in our laws. He just claims everything is an emergency no matter how stupid it is. The courts, in their extremely limited wisdom, long ago decided that there was no way for them to determine what a valid emergency was and just defers to the executive.

        • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 hours ago

          The courts, in their extremely limited wisdom, long ago decided that there was no way for them to determine what a valid emergency was and just defers to the executive.

          I can kind of see the reasoning behind this. If there is a genuine emergency, you don’t want to waste time in the courts. Urgency matters.

          To make an absurd metaphor, imagine if you called 911 because your house was on fire. You call, and tell the operator. And then instead of immediately dispatching a fire crew to handle it, the operator goes “okay, we’ll send a judge over to take a look and determine if this is a legitimate emergency. They’ll be there in about 30 minutes. Maybe an hour, because the courts are pretty busy right now. If the judge determines it is an emergency, we’ll dispatch the fire truck.”

      • No1@aussie.zone
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        1 day ago

        You forgot that Trump will pre-emptively pardon himself and everyone involved, and so nobody will ever be held accountable or face any consequences.

    • azimir@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Sternly worded letter and some social media posts to fundraise for the next campaign cycle.

    • Infrapink@thebrainbin.org
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      18 hours ago

      Of course he isn’t. Kings have way less power and authority than the POTUS.

      Honestly, I think it would be best for everybody if we just let Trump be an actual king. Let him wear a crown and sit on a throne while the prime minister actually runs the country.

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
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    1 day ago

    Honestly the New Colussus is the only thing that was ever cool about America, even if it was a lie.

      • Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
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        22 hours ago

        The New Colossus:
        “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

        You: this sucks actually

        Bad take my guy but its okay we all got 'em

        • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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          22 hours ago

          Also I just … don’t like statues literally at all. I know I’m weird for this take (it’s not a take, really a preference), but like … why build a statue when you can build something functional or actually pretty? (Also I just realized your profile picture is a statue so don’t take it personally 😆.)

        • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@anarchist.nexus
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          22 hours ago

          You: this sucks actually

          I mean I fuck with the literal message, but … I am literally incapable of suspending my disbelief when it comes to the words of AmeriKKKa and france-cool. If someone other than AmeriKKKa and france-cool did it then I’d fuck with it (unless they’re monsters of the same order as AmeriKKKa and france-cool).

          Bad take my guy but its okay we all got 'em

          I mean I can eat that 😆. If we all gotta have at least one shitty take, at least mine’s over some goofy statue and not something serious shrug-outta-hecks

          • Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
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            21 hours ago

            Nah I get you, the countries are imperialistic as they come. The sentiment is more what we wanna keep.