2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Josquius]

OK that's dumb. Was reading through it wondering whether it was the guy who threw the stone being sued, which would be valid, but nope, it'd the organiser.

[garbon]

April 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a Black Lives Matter activist to be sued by a Louisiana police officer injured during a protest, opens new tab in 2016 in a case that could make it riskier to engage in public demonstrations, a hallmark of American democracy.


https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rejects-black-lives-matter-activists-appeal-over-protest-2024-04-15/

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-supreme-court-decision-to-decline-to-hear-case-on-protestors-rights

A counterpoint:
https://newrepublic.com/article/180739/mckesson-doe-first-amendment-sotomayor

[grumbler]

April 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a Black Lives Matter activist to be sued by a Louisiana police officer injured during a protest, opens new tab in 2016 in a case that could make it riskier to engage in public demonstrations, a hallmark of American democracy.


https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rejects-black-lives-matter-activists-appeal-over-protest-2024-04-15/

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-supreme-court-decision-to-decline-to-hear-case-on-protestors-rights

It's a tricky case for the USSC, because the issue before them was whether or not a protest organizer could ever be held civilly liable for actions of someone in the protest, which isn't a ruling they want to make.  As Justice Sotomayor points out, the law already bars liability under simple negligence, and anyone suing Mckesson will have to prove that the assault was intended by him.  That's a major burden that I don't think that the plaintiffs can met.

[Oexmelin]

I am not sure I share Justice Sotomayor's optimism regarding future rulings of the Fifth Circuit, considering its current ideological outlook.

In any case, until it's brought up again, its work as a deterrent will be done presumably at the time of the next election.

[grumbler]

I am not sure I share Justice Sotomayor's optimism regarding future rulings of the Fifth Circuit, considering its current ideological outlook.

In any case, until it's brought up again, its work as a deterrent will be done presumably at the time of the next election.

Since it does not change the status of anything, I'm not sure what deterrent effect it will have.

[The Minsky Moment]

Sotomayor's message wasn't directed to the 5th Circuit, it was directed to the District Court judge in the Middle District of Louisiana who initially dismissed the entire case.  Her message is that to the extent that the 5th Circuit's decision is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's later ruling, the district court should follow the Supreme Court ruling.

[Savonarola]

Fill up your granaries now because:

Lara Trump Threatens 'Four Years of Scorched Earth' If Trump Retakes Power

He showed us a whole lot that we didn't know was going on — within the media, within Washington, D.C. He exposed a lot of people. So they have to do everything they can to keep him out of that White House 'cause they know Donald Trump gets in for four more years, the jig is up for them. The gloves are off. There are no holds barred here. He is going full-throttle. He's not worried about winning another election. It's four years of scorched earth when Donald Trump retakes the White House.

That's an... uhm... inspirational message. 

[Savonarola]

And, unfortunately, one that's already started to pay dividends:

David Hume Kennerly resigns from Gerald Ford foundation board over refusal to honor Liz Cheney with top award

David Hume Kennerly, a Pulitzer-prize-winning photographer who served in the Ford White House, announced his resignation on Tuesday from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation board over its "short-sighted" rejection of former Rep. Liz Cheney for the organization's yearly award.

"Today I am resigning from the Gerald R. Ford board as a trustee. If the foundation that bears the name of Gerald R. Ford won't stand up to this real threat to our democracy, who will?" Kennerly said in a letter to members of the executive committee.

Kennerly slammed Ford's namesake organization for its choice not to honor Cheney, an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, with the Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

"A key reason Liz's nomination was turned down was your agita about what might happen if the former president is reelected. Some of you raised the specter of being attacked by the Internal Revenue Service and losing the foundation's tax-exempt status as retribution for selecting Liz for the award," he wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Politico.

He continued, "The historical irony was completely lost on you. Gerald Ford became president, in part, because Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed. That's exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there's a second coming of Donald Trump."

Gleaves Whitney, executive director of the Ford Presidential Foundation, said in a statement that the foundation's executive committee, "guided by legal counsel, concluded that it was not prudent to award the 2024 Ford medal to Liz Cheney."

"At the time the award was being discussed, it was being publicly reported that Cheney was under active consideration for a presidential run by No Labels," the statement said, referring to the group that had dabbled with fielding a third-party ticket only to abandon the idea last week. "Exercising its fiduciary responsibility, the executive committee concluded that giving the Ford medal to Cheney in the 2024 election cycle might be construed as a political statement and thus expose the Foundation to the legal risk of losing its nonprofit status with the IRS."

Kennerly, who served as Ford's chief photographer and provided an intimate glimpse into the White House, claimed in the letter that Cheney, who also serves on the board of the Ford Presidential Foundation, was rejected for the award three times, despite suggesting her for the honor multiple times.
"After two people you selected instead of her demurred, I weighed in again with what I thought was a compelling presentation to some of the nominators where I reiterated Liz's merits. When you rejected her again in favor of a third person, it became crystal clear to me that something else was going on."

The former Wyoming congresswoman has criticized Trump on multiple occasions. Cheney was one of just two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and Trump's responsibility for the insurrection.

She lost her post in House Republican leadership and, ultimately, her seat in Congress after publicly rejecting for months Trump's lie that he won the 2020 presidential election and voting to impeach him following the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

Cheney said in December that she will do "whatever I have to do" to stop the former president from returning to the White House.

"Those of you who rejected Liz join many 'good Republicans' now aiding and abetting our 45th president by ignoring the genuine menace he presents to our country," Kennerly wrote. "America is fortunate to have Liz Cheney still out there on the front lines of freedom vigorously defending our Constitution and democratic way
of life."

The Gerald R. Ford Museum is in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan (I won the 1990 Grand Rapids Citizen Bee there.)  My parents are members of the museum and have attended a number of lectures there.  Last year they attended one on the 1976 presidential election with one of the scholars from the Ford Museum and one from the Carter Museum.  This was filmed for CSPAN.  At the end there was a period for questions and answers.  One man got up and, instead of asking a question, got onto a rant about 2020, stolen elections, and our democracy was being taken from us.  They ended the Q&A period after that, and the scholars said they'd talk to him in private if he liked.

I've seen a number of public lectures, and I know the Q&A period can go a lot of ways (none of them good) but that still surprised me.  It's so far from who Ford was; or Carter for that matter.

(Also, do you think David Hume Kennerly's parents were disappointed that he became a photographer rather than a philosopher or historian?)

[The Minsky Moment]

"At the time the award was being discussed, it was being publicly reported that Cheney was under active consideration for a presidential run by No Labels," the statement said, referring to the group that had dabbled with fielding a third-party ticket only to abandon the idea last week. "Exercising its fiduciary responsibility, the executive committee concluded that giving the Ford medal to Cheney in the 2024 election cycle might be construed as a political statement and thus expose the Foundation to the legal risk of losing its nonprofit status with the IRS."

That is one of the weakest, most pathetic excuses I've ever heard. Note they do not say that Liz Chaney considered being a No Labels candidate because she didn't.   What on earth does it matter if No Labels itself considered her, along with Chris Sununnu (twice), Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Larry Hogan, Brian Kemp, Ross Perot, Ferris Bueller, and Gerald Ford's old Michigan football jersey?

If that's the best you got, just say no comment and don't embarrass yourself.