Michael Podhorzer

Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 14:11 UTC

If you think there's a contradiction with their ruling yesterday, you're wrong. No one is above the law – which now says that the president is above the law. Let's call it the MC Escher precedent.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 14:01 UTC

Brett Kavanaugh told the Senate: “No one’s above the law in the United States, that’s a foundational principle…. We’re all equal before the law…. The foundation of our Constitution was that…the presidency would not be a monarchy…. [T]he president is not above the law, no one is above the law.”

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 14:01 UTC

Samuel Alito said: “There is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law.”

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 14:01 UTC

In their confirmation hearings… John Roberts said: “I believe that no one is above the law under our system and that includes the president. The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution, and statutes.”

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:34 UTC

Let's be clear: All six GOP-appointed SCOTUS justices, and Judge Aileen Cannon, have current or former associations with the Federalist Society. None of them can be impartial about cases involving Trump, because his defeat will also mean the defeat of their hard-fought ideological legacy.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:34 UTC

Whenever SCOTUS has made elections MORE democratic it was by large majorities. But SCOTUS has made our elections LESS democratic—on a straight partisan basis—repeatedly over the last 24 years. The dark red bars represent conservative election-related rulings decided *exclusively* by GOP nominees.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:32 UTC

8. Bush v. Gore: The original sin, which set the template for the strictly partisan electoral decisions to come. If the disputes over the validity of all the ballots in question had been consistently resolved and any uniform standard applied, Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:32 UTC

7. Citizens United brought a sea change in how our elections are run and who can influence them.  Spending on congressional/presidential campaigns was barely more in 2008 than 2000, but 2020 spending skyrocketed.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:31 UTC

6. In a series of cases beginning with Shelby County, the Court’s right-wing majority all but repealed the Voting Rights Act. The reasoning was embarrassingly bad, and the results catastrophic, including but not limited to opening the door to modern-day poll taxes and suppression of Black voters.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:31 UTC

5. Now let’s start going back in time a decade or so. Thanks to SCOTUS gerrymandering decisions, Democrats won 21 seats fewer than their proportion of the vote in 2012—depriving Democrats of a trifecta in 2013 and 2014 during Obama’s second term.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:31 UTC

4. SCOTUS hearing the Fischer case, which could upend J6 charges against Trump, due to paper-thin concerns about suppressing legitimate protest (a concern they did not show in a recent case involving Black Lives Matter).

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:31 UTC

3. SCOTUS handing MAGA the House in 2022. Democrats would have held their majority, or Republicans would have won by at most one seat (218 to 217), if midterms had been conducted using 2020 maps or the maps federal courts ordered states to use before the Federalist Society justices overturned them.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:30 UTC

2. Judge Aileen Cannon shielding Trump from pre-election accountability in the classified documents case, with delays, delays, and more delays.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:28 UTC

1. SCOTUS shielding Trump from pre-election accountability for January 6th and the criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. If the MAGA justices really thought this case was worth hearing, they would have said so when Jack Smith first asked them about it in December.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:28 UTC

Since Bush v. Gore, the GOP-appointed justices have consistently acted to benefit Republicans electorally. Here are some of the biggest acts of election interference we’ve seen from MAGA/FedSoc judges:

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:27 UTC

Imagine you were told that in another country, a president who had been defeated in a free and fair election attempted a coup, for which he was indicted—but four years later, the very judges he had appointed have helped protect him from standing trial so he could return to office.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:27 UTC

They’ve forced a historic crisis—an irreconcilable showdown between the normal operation of the criminal justice system (which should find Trump in pretrial and trial proceedings for his January 6th crimes over the next five months) and the normal functioning of presidential elections.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:26 UTC

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the presidential immunity decision. If you’re wondering whether the MAGA majority on the Court will let Trump off the hook, they already have.

By doing so, they have already interfered in the 2024 elections.

www.weekendreading.net/p/tipping-th...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 13, 2024 at 18:42 UTC

If the media had properly labeled this as a pharma case and not an abortion case, no one would have been surprised.

Even for Alito, who clearly wants to move the country in a more “godly” direction, profit is the highest god of all.

www.weekendreading.net/p/supreme-ga...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 13, 2024 at 18:42 UTC

Let’s be clear: The SCOTUS decision on mifepristone has NOTHING to do with abortion. It also has NOTHING to do with the principles of standing. It’s about keeping the pharmaceutical industry's business model intact.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 22, 2024 at 23:34 UTC

It’s no coincidence that Mike Johnson displayed the same flag outside his office. Alito and Johnson pledge allegiance to the same flag, and the theocratic republic for which it stands. Neither has rejected the insurrectionists, and both have done all they can to shield Trump from accountability.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 22, 2024 at 23:34 UTC

It's no coincidence that the "Appeal to Heaven" flag Alito flew is both a symbol of January 6th and of Christian nationalism.

I wrote here about how the Christian nationalist movement, allied with MAGA, has hijacked the Republican Party: www.weekendreading.net/p/hiding-in-...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:45 UTC

8) Like Roberts, we cling to the belief, against all evidence, that the credibility of the Supreme Court and the “rule of law” are better served by defending the institution rather than holding it accountable to democratic scrutiny.

Read more here: www.weekendreading.net/p/supreme-ga...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:45 UTC

7) Throughout their confirmation hearings the six Federalist Society justices pledged allegiance to stare decisis, as well as originalism. But their real commitment is to ipse dixit (“he himself said it”)—it’s the law because we say it’s the law.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:44 UTC

6) Thought experiment: Imagine that in November 2008, you sank into a coma. Revived today, you would be told that the Voting Rights Act was all but repealed and Roe v. Wade had been overturned, with NO congressional action, and that Trump was leading polls despite leading an insurrection.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:42 UTC

5) When he was confirmed, Roberts famously claimed that the proper role of the court was to be “an umpire, calling balls and strikes.” But while previous justices toggled between narrow and expansive strike zones, the Roberts court declares winners and losers.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:42 UTC

4) The media has contextual amnesia. Count on them to forget all this when they try to explain the next SCOTUS ruling inside the four corners of the case, without reference to the interests of the people who put the majority justices on the Court.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:42 UTC

3) Roberts is not “the adult in the room.” His attempt to preserve the credibility of the court is to scold those who question the legitimacy of its rulings. As Roberts himself might put it: The best way to end charges that the Court is corrupt is to stop corrupt justices from serving on the Court.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:41 UTC

2) Alito and Thomas are the most obviously conflicted. But all six GOP-appointed justices have another clear conflict: They are associated with the Federalist Society, which seeks to ideologically transform the courts. This legacy at SCOTUS is only secure if Trump wins.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:40 UTC

It’s long past time we acknowledge and reckon with the following: 1) But for Alito and his similarly conflicted fellow justices, Donald Trump would almost certainly be a convicted felon for J6 by now.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 19, 2024 at 17:40 UTC

Alito and Thomas have made clear their insurrectionist connections. So why are we debating whether Alito should recuse himself, instead of demanding Roberts dismiss Trump’s immunity appeal so the J6 trial can begin immediately? (It should be “dismissed as improvidently granted.")

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 09, 2024 at 19:20 UTC

It’s not the news media’s job to prevent Trump from winning. But it is their job to make sure that when Americans exercise their democratic rights, they do so fully aware of what the news media already knows that future would bring for them.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 09, 2024 at 19:20 UTC

For instance, if the Times stands by this excellent reporting from November 2023, where are the follow-up stories about how those plans would play out in 2025 if Trump wins? Where are the polls about how voters would feel about mass deportations and detention camps?
www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/u...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 09, 2024 at 19:20 UTC

I agree with @nycscribe that the @nytimes shouldn't put a thumb on the scale for Biden. 

I’d be satisfied if Kahn edited the Times as if he believed his own paper’s groundbreaking stories about Trump's plans were both true and important.

www.weekendreading.net/p/does-joe-k...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:26 UTC

Read more here:

www.weekendreading.net/p/more-than-...

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:25 UTC

Attacks on US unions by corporations and their political allies have played an essential role in this divergence. The chart below shows how the adoption of the Wagner Act in 1935 rapidly ameliorated inequality, and how that inequality has returned as unions have been eroded.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:25 UTC

Now looking at wealth: the wealth gap between the two groups was smaller in Europe than in the US in 1995, and this gap widened more since in the US. In the last 30 years, the bottom half of the wealth distribution in the US hasn’t gained any wealth, and was often in debt.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:24 UTC

Indeed, while there has been some erosion in the relative shares of income held by the two groups in Western Europe, in the US, the relationship has reversed—with the top 1% holding 5% more pre-tax income than the bottom 50%, compared to 1980, when the bottom 50% held 10% more.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:23 UTC

In 1980, the shares of pre-tax national income in the US and Western Europe held by the bottom 50% vs top 1% were similar. Since, these shares have changed slightly in Europe, but in the US the share held by the top 1% has radically increased, at the expense of the bottom 50%.

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Michael Podhorzer @mikepod.bsky.social [ View ] May 08, 2024 at 18:22 UTC

It’s often said that the rising income inequality in the US reflects worldwide trends due to globalization. But when we compare the US with Western Europe—where unions have not suffered the same erosion—we see a different story.  We see why attacks on unions hurt all of us. 🧵

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