Scott Cornelius

Political hack/wonk, urbanist, Chicago lawyer, and lover of South Louisiana and Houston sports. Very left-liberal, not a socialist. There's a difference.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

Yesterday, I enjoyed the jokes about the death of democracy or rule of law or about what Biden should do with his new power. But I want to level set this:

Trump v. US is nothing less than America's Enabling Act of 1933, the legal basis for dictatorial power.

Let me explain.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@kevindavis1701a @cornoisseur Well, really I want taxpayers to spend like 1-2 billion and borrow the rest against the acquisition. But the key thing is we get an asset that makes hundreds of millions a year and has appreciated hugely in recent decades!

[@ijbailey @ijbailey]

I SOOO want Susan Collins out of the Senate. But there's just no way I'm going to ignore all of this. Why couldn't Main Democrats find someone else? For those who plan to vote for Platner, at least don't lie about why. Don't pretend all of this is a nothingburger. It's not.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@neeratanden This is correct.

The problem now is the same as 2 years ago: no viable mechanism to change course. Perhaps it's an argument against primaries, or at least having some kind of backstop on them.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@JoePostingg Neither is completely costless. Dumping Kavanaugh right before the midterms would have hurt Republicans in the election. Dumping Franken cost Dems a top messenger.

Doesn't mean it's not *worth* the cost to dump them, but not costless.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

We should definitely view violent Christian or Jewish extremists exactly as we view violent Muslim extremists.

[The Global Liberal 🇺🇳 @jamesdoe1912]

I find this stuff infuriating because if the GWOT had been fought against primarily Christian or jewish extremists then most leftists would have less of a problem with it. But because islam is browncoded that means killing them is bad because leftists are stuck in idpol

[Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 @cmclymer]

I personally don't trust Graham Platner. I don't think he belongs in the U.S. Senate. His explanation over the Nazi tattoo still doesn't make any damn sense to me, and nothing since then has made me feel better about his sense of judgment for navigating the general election fight against Susan Collins.

But what's far more concerning to me is Trump appointing more SCOTUS justices and federal judges in the next two years. Sen. Collins needs to be replaced with a Democrat to prevent that.

If I could wave a magic wand, I'd have Gov. Mills as the nominee instead of Mr. Platner because at this point, I think she'd have a stronger chance against Collins. I base that mostly on the dreadful feeling that there are things we don't yet know. Maybe there aren't. I hope there aren't.

Ultimately, only Mr. Platner really knows the scope of challenges facing him over the next five months. Is there more possibly coming? Even more than what we've already seen? Only he really knows.

But the window is rapidly closing, and very soon, we will be stuck hoping the voters of Maine choose Mr. Platner over Sen. Collins in the general election.

I don't think anything I have to say here is going to matter one way or the other to Mr. Platner, but if he does ever happen to read this, I hope he understands how much is at stake and what he's asking of voters in trusting him over Sen. Collins.

I hope he really understands the gravity of this moment and is considering the consequences for the country that go far, far beyond his own personal life.

But if he does know, deep down, there's a significant chance of his campaign imploding after the primary, he needs to step aside for the greater good.

Not much else to say.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@hnejr @greggnunziata That's the 2nd time you've mentioned RBG's criticism, but she only said it went further than necessary and should have used different reasoning.

The idea that the Court then was "writing laws Congress wouldn't pass" more than any other period is pretty silly.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@GMGunstonHall @greggnunziata As far as ignoring the Constitution, that is a big leap from flawed reasoning. Is your claim that the Constitution somehow bars the Court from striking down state laws at all?

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@GMGunstonHall @greggnunziata The OP was about the legitimacy of the Court, so yeah, it matters. The OP's point was that disagreeing with the Court is not a reason to undermine it's legitimacy. My response was that the current issue is not mere disagreement but partisan/corrupt behavior.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@robertgraham I don't think "billionaires aren't tax avoiding quite as hard as they could" is the winning message you seem to think it is.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@tracewoodgrains I've been saying this for many years. Money doesn't buy elections, it (1) enables you to have a campaign at all, then (2) marginally influences the result above that baseline.

The 1 with more $ wins ~90% of the time because so many candidates can't even mount a real campaign.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@hnejr @greggnunziata I don't know who "the Feds" are in your mind, but Roe was only 1 of many cases striking down state laws for violating the US Constitution. It's not even the only one to rely on implied rights, see Meyer v. Nebraska or Saenz v. Roe for other examples.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@GMGunstonHall @greggnunziata Was it partisan? Was there any suggestion it was motivated by personal or political motives?

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@JimmytheButt202 @greggnunziata I wasn't around in 1973, but I am quite confident neither party celebrated it. Dems had a lot of Catholics and a lot of liberals, Republicans increasingly had religious conservatives but also still a lot of NE liberals.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

Reading about intra-EU disputes over trade policy as an American lawyer is a flashback to law school, specifically commerce clause litigation in the 19th century.

Hopefully one day the EU will figure out the answer we figured out in 1937-42.

[Olena Tregub @OTregub]

Ireland defense for supplying roughly 90% of EU alumina exports to Russia is that the EU never sanctioned alumina.
But when it came to Israel, Ireland didn't wait for the EU.
Dublin pushed ahead with its own Occupied Territories legislation, openly challenging the EU's common trade policy and arguing that moral considerations required action.
Apparently, "we can't act without Brussels" applies to Russia, but not to Israel.
Interesting standard.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@BradOnMessage So Republicans are theoretically willing to raise the minimum wage, but not for hardly any actual workers.

Since, you know, most places already have minimum wages >$10/hr and even in places that don't there aren't many actual fed minimum wage jobs out there.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@LAGovJeffLandry What about people who are X? X/XY? XX/XY? XXX? XXY?

Those are just SOME of the *chromosomal* intersex conditions. Are they... people?

If your definition cannot include basic biological fact, it is not a useful definition.

[Scott Cornelius @ScottCorne]

@RoguePOTUSStaff It really annoys me when people vaguely blame "the establishment" or the "the party" for everything...

But she was handpicked by Schumer so not really the best case for this argument.

https://t.co/9W8JCAIwRL