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How about “vexatious litigation”?
How about “vexatious litigation”?
Your instinct to search for a non-Murdoch source is correct, as they are trying to paint the entire NFP as holding the same positions as their most extreme member.
There is little to no chance of Melenchon becoming Prime Minister or having any ability to enact this tax.
However a marginal tax rate of 90% on income over €400k is well above the upper-middle class and would apply to only the wealthiest families, most of whom would still have other avenues to minimise the tax they actually pay.
This is a bit of a misleading summary.
Melenchon speaks for his own party, France Unbowed (LFI), not the entire NFP alliance.
The NFP as a whole has not declared support for Melenchon’s position, although his party controls 71 (~41%) of NFP’s 180 seats in the National Assembly.
Macron has already indicated that he will not allow Melenchon to become Prime Minister, and the entire NFP will be aware that they must select a more moderate leader to represent them if they expect to gain enough support from the centre to operate as a minority government.
He thinks the Ten Commandments are a bingo card.
Quick, put some AI in it!
This is somewhat analogous to the way midterm elections are treated in the US, and a decent comparison would be when Mitch McConnell blocked Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice towards the end of his second term.
The Democrats lost seats in Congress during that midterm season, which the Republicans used to claim that the American people had no faith in the Democrats and therefore no faith in Obama. They then used this claim as an excuse to block the Democrats ability to govern.
In this case, the people of France have voted for another party to represent their interests internationally to the EU parliament.
Macron will now face claims within the French government that the people voting against them in the EU elections indicates that they have no faith in his party’s leadership and that will make it difficult for him to govern.
With this move, calling an election early, they will have a clear indication of who the French people wish to lead them internally and, if they reelect Macron’s party, can dismiss the claims from opposition parties that the people don’t trust them.
It’s worth mentioning that many governments around the world don’t have fixed election cycles the way you do in the US. Instead many countries have an end date by which the election must occur, but a new election can be called at any time before that date if the government thinks it’s necessary. A similar thing is currently happening in the UK where the Conservative Party has called an election for early July, even though the election didn’t have to take place until late January 2025.
This article could’ve been a PNG
It’s pretty common with dementia that older memories are recalled more strongly and as if they happened more recently than they actually did.
Would Israel take the same approach if Hamas was hiding in an Israeli hospital?
If anyone made it as far as the third sentence in the article, they might notice that “Islamic Jihad” in the title refers to “Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.
They’re not blaming Hamas for this incident. PIJ is a separate organisation.
I agree that he ought to be disqualified from holding office per the 14th Amendment, however I doubt it will apply.
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
I’ve bolded the parts which might apply to Trump.
executive or judicial officer of any State
He was an Executive, but not of any State, so he doesn’t meet that condition.
officer of the United States
“Officer of the United States” has an established meaning in the constitution as, essentially, “officers appointed by the President” (with approval from the Senate).
U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
If we take this list to be exhaustive, then Officers must be appointed by the President and are not elected by the public, therefore the President himself is excluded from the definition of “Officers of the United States”.
The Supreme Court has followed this reasoning in the past.
United States v. Mouat, 124 U.S. 303 (1888)
Unless a person in the service of the government, therefore, holds his place by virtue of an appointment by the President or of one of the courts of justice or heads of departments authorized by law to make such an appointment, he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.
And Justice Roberts has used this reasoning more recently.
Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477 (2010):
The diffusion of power carries with it a diffusion of accountability. The people do not vote for the “Officers of the United States.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2. They instead look to the President to guide the “assistants or deputies … subject to his superintendence.”
And finally
having previously taken an oath
The oath taken by those Congress and Officers of the United States (and all others listed in U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3) is a different oath to the one sworn by the President, and it may be argued that the oath U.S. Const. amend. XIV refers to is explicitly that sworn by members of Congress and other Officers, not the Presidential Oath of Office. (Although this to me is the weakest part of the arguement.)
While I completely agree that by any reasonable standard Trump ought to be disqualified from holding office per the 14th Amendment, it is unfortunately not a reasonable standard that he will be held to. It is this Supreme Court’s standard.
I totally appreciate your sentiment and generally agree, but with the caveat that the problem you’re facing is not just a problem with this current election, but an inherent issue with your electoral system.