Summary
Justice Samuel Alito, a self-described Originalist, has been criticized for allegedly disregarding the Constitution’s text when it conflicts with his personal views.
Recently, it emerged that Alito accepted a knighthood from a European order, despite the Constitution’s ban on foreign titles for U.S. officials.
This title, from the House of Bourbon–Two Sicilies, raises questions about Alito’s commitment to American democratic ideals, which the Framers aimed to protect from foreign influence.
Critics argue that Alito’s actions reflect hypocrisy in his supposed adherence to Originalism and constitutional principles.
This title, from the House of Bourbon–Two Sicilies
Didn’t that family go extinct some time after the Italian unification?
I feel like I’ve just started listening after zoning out while someone is trying to explain a new TTRPG.
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that’s fine, if he wants to be a knight he totally can. And it seems like he’s made his choice so let him be.
Harris will be happy to appoint his replacement.
Seriously, they are just, literally, mentally ill people. It’s not more complex than that - look at his face. They have chemical imbalances that could be quickly and effectively addressed with commonly available medication (as millions of Americans take willingly each day). They’ve just made a religion out of refusing that treatment and living in their delusions. reagan emptied the mental hospitals and shut them down, the patients ran right into the gop’s tent and haven’t left since.
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You’re focusing on semantics, replace “medicated” with “treated by a professional” here if it helps you get the larger point?
I didn’t say APDs directly, while that would be low hanging fruit here, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alito and some of these people turned out to be borderline paranoid schizophrenics - They are taking “oaths” from “magical royal orders” and flying upside down flags with trees on them to signal pending widespread violence to their imagined allies, where Christians will literally eviscerate their perceived enemies with swords. All the while they are stock piling wrappings and terrified of a looming foreign threat that they are convinced will eat their house pets. All along the way, they all furiously reference (while rarely reading) an old book, written in a dead language, about magical talking bushes and men who can control the sea water with their minds and come back from the dead after having walked on water and spontaneously generated fish and wine.
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IMO, respectfully it’s more comforting for you personally to do that work to justify that it’s all explainable and we’re not being actively governed by the mentally ill. Again, IMO, it’s enabling for you to connect those dots on their behalf. They are showing you reality here, of course its human nature to say, “wait… No? Right, this isn’t serious?”
But it is, “they’re eating the dogs and the cats” “they control the weather” “secret pedophile pizza basements” “secret Muslims without birth certificates” - this is all happening now.
I thought the 13th amendment of 1812 didn’t pass?
Any other CK3 players eyebrows up in this thread?
HOI4 here wondering when the French heavy armor starts rolling…
Your username has always caught my attention… ofc you’re one of those hoi people 😜
Haha, yeah.
Looking forward to EU5?
I’m actually waiting for a particularly clear period in my life to lose a month to CK3.
Looks like I’m gonna have to start pumping out kids to secure those alliances.
Took me a moment to understand how funny this is, given the context, and not just a passing comment on “stuff you do in game” 😁
Context?
The game is not about the nation state like most games, but the player and their dynasty/lineage per se. So it’s all about individuals’ titles, rules of who is applicable in succession, etc
To be fair, I could have made the same joke about anyone interested in noble house history, heraldry, knights being rad, etc
Boot his worthless MAGAT ass out of the Supreme Court and he can take his shitty Appeal to Heaven flag with him.
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Who the FUCK cares about the Constitution when it’s used to do ANYTHING besides Defend a Gunman who Murdered a CLASSROOM FULL OF CHILDREN! I’m Pro Life btw :)
You have no idea how hard it is to suppress the downvote reflex here.
Pretty neat they could challenge the basis of government in a public forum without fear of retaliation tho.
Yeah it’s kinda wild. Almost like thats a protected right or something. It’d be a shame if someone wanted to take it away.
Is Trollito in any secret societies like Opus Dei?
Knights of Malta are having a rebirth and have been active with his sort.
(Edit: well, waddaya know: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/justice-alitos-royalist-cosplay.html
Conservative lobbyist and court-packer Leonard Leo belongs to the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta, a Catholic lay order that dates to the Crusades. The Opus Dei organization, best known for its super-kinky corporal-mortification rules, sent a priest wearing a spiked garter under his cassock to convert a swath of Republicans in Washington — a project that has proved quite successful.)
He does fly this flag at his home, though
It’s not because of it’s original use.
It’s because he’s a major player/member in the NAR (the new apostolic reformation) which is an accelerationist movement with the explicit intent to bring about Armageddon so Jesus can return.
I shit you not.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/appeal-to-heaven-flag-nar-alito
Lol what a shit flag. It looks like fucking clip art. Some of the most boomer-coded shit I have ever seen in my life.
For a bit of context: the house of Bourbon - Two sicilies has no land for 150 years. They used to rule the south of Italy but after the Italian “unification” (or conquest) they got kicked out and have no real power.
While this may still be a conflict of interest since I am pretty sure they are still filthy rich and they may have economic interests in the US. But there is no foreign power interference here since there is no foreign power 🙂
Sure but it’s the idea that counts.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
By the strict wording it’s a violation because they absolutely style themselves as princes to a throne in exile.
Interesting issue. Does their belief in their right to power control? There’s that crazy lady in Canada who calls herself the queen of Canada and issues edicts and whatever every now and then (somehow connected to qanon, I don’t remember the details). Could a US official accept a “title” bestowed by her, since she claims nobility and authority?
My recollection on the emoluments issue was SCOTUS punted in the same way they did with respect to Trump’s ability to run for office after the insurrection - Congress must declare the violation, and the remedy is presumably impeachment. So the practical effect is zero, since Congress would never take this up, let alone impeach and remove. I’d love if Dems did though, it would be fun seeing Republicans defend their justice receiving nighthood from some weird ass secret society thing.
That would be an issue for a court but it would be really hard to make the case that actual nobles bestowing actual titles in actual knight orders isn’t a violation.
It would be an impeachment regardless because the remedy is to fire them and that’s how you fire a SCOTUS judge.
Do they need to be recognized by the US as a foreign prince for it to count?
If not, could Will Smith “The Fresh Prince” grant a disqualifying title?
W.T.F.
The US needs to clean house, expand the SCOTUS to put these corrupt judges firmly in the minority so they’re ineffective for the rest of their miserable life-long-unelected-terms, if it can’t outright impeach them!
Why did Joe Biden do nothing to rebalance the Supreme Court in all his 4 years of being President?
He’s still got a couple months, but it shouldn’t be about packing the court. It should be about removing the corrupt ones. They need, NEED to have accountability.
Because he’s a typical Clintonite conservative Democrat. 9/10 times he’s on the side of defending the political institutions and, at most, patch them up here or there.
He was never going to be a great reformer. Just like he remains a staunch Zionist in spite of 75 years of apartheid rule and other crimes against humanity, he remains firmly convinced that the American political system is fundamentally just and that changing it would be worse than the inequities that come from NOT doing so.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed on April 7, 2022.
Well that’s a start, but not enough in itself to fix the problem. He could have done more, and we wouldn’t be looking at a Supreme Court eager to support Trump’s re-election.
Probably because (just like almost everything else) he isn’t a dictator that can unilaterally reshape a whole branch of government. Congress sets the number, not the President. If you want to actually see reforms go out and vote in more Representatives and Senators.
He could always send up a nomination. There’s nothing illegal about that. If Congress accepts it then their law is moot by their own action.
Because the Democratic Party puts a lot of value on norms and mores. Blowing up the Supreme Court (and then having to deal with whatever reaction that the GOP has when they get power again, which I’m sure would be totally rational and proportionate), is just too much of a massive change in the status quo for Biden.
I think there are pros and cons to these ideas for expanding the court, etc. But I think it is important for people to realize that it’s not just as simple as flipping a switch or something. The implications and consequences would be massive, and impossible to predict completely.
No idea! I have wondered that myself. In fact why doesn’t he do it now, he’s the ultimate lame duck prez, there’d be no consequences for him so he absolutely should a few days after the election – if he truly could (I don’t know enough about the details about how he could so do).
If your question is not just rhetorical, I totally agree, 100%.
In fact I wish he’d declare he’s dissolving SCOTUS completely, plus a few levels of courts below and appointing non-partisan judges across the board to clean house and reset the decades of theocratic-proto-fascists that appear to have infiltrated the system at all levels. He could, after all, do anything right? The SCOTUS ruled this summer that Presidents have ‘absolute immunity’, so why not? It would be the ultimate F*ck You to their corruption and would be a historically beautiful way to bow out.
I mean, he could, but wouldn’t he need Congress to confirm his appointments? They’d just do what they did while Obama was in office and block any motion for a vote, especially since the Democratic party doesn’t hold a filibuster-proof, 60-member Senate majority. Although, Obama had that and still blew it, the price of believing one can still engage in good faith negotiations with bad faith actors, I’m afraid.
They’re already declaring their intentions to not negotiate with Harris in good faith, should she win the election, and to block all Presidential appointments. Hopefully she will go ahead and do it anyway. SCOTUS does get the final say in what does and does not constitute an “Official Act”, but they don’t have any enforcement mechanism. All they can do is send a strongly-worded letter, asking her to stop, but they can’t force her to stop.
I mean, he could, but wouldn’t he need Congress to confirm his appointments?
Just a simple majority in the Senate. And since he has absolute immunity, he can just order the executions of a sufficient number of Republican senators to ensure his appointments make it through confirmation.
He could, after all, do anything right? The SCOTUS ruled this summer that Presidents have ‘absolute immunity’, so why not?
I am so sick of seeing this argument. SCOTUS didn’t give him any more actual powers, they shielded him from prosecution. He can’t just unilaterally declare he’s dissolving a whole branch of government, because he never had that power in the first place. What do you expect him to do to actually back that up? March the army in?
without Consent of the Congress. theres his out.
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Recently, it emerged that Alito accepted a knighthood from a European order, despite the Constitution’s ban on foreign titles for U.S. officials.
Oh no, my sealand and Scottish titles!
Are you a US official, or just a dirty anti-American monarchist?
I just like spending money on obvious scams!
That’s fair
There is no Stalin on him!
Wait, wrong country. He is like Stalin!
Don’t worry, just get rich enough to not have the law apply.
But my sealand title wiped my savings!
Run for president before the law catches up, its a sure to work.
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Except the title is not from the UK? Can you at least read a bit more than the title before commenting?
Heck, OP even put it in the effing summary. No need to click the article even.
Whoops a knee jerk reaction, my bad
can he be kicked out for it though?
seems like the president has so much immunity for official actions that Alito accepting his knighthood should be an automatic empty slot on the court, Harris should appoint his replacement immediately so Alito can concentrate on his royal duties.
And when she does, she should point out the law, and Alito’s dedication to originalist interpretation of said document.
Alito has a chance here to prove originalisim is an actual, good faith interpretation of the Constitution, and not just rhetoric pulled out to get what you want. All he has to do is step down.
With a 50% vote in the house and a 66% vote in the senate
66 is only because of the filibuster right? Bit they could get rid of that if they would get a majority in the Senate… I know, its copium.but today I’m taking copium.
No, it’s because the process of removing a supreme court justice is the exact same impeachment process that applies to presidents
Rules for thee and not for meeeee, wheeeee
