Because maybe conservatives want to go back to segregation? But this time it will be enforced along economic factors, how much money someone has, more minorities are gaining in wealth status w/ white counterparts, GOP would not want to be cut off from attempts to get wealth from these people.
Except it isn't really, because instead of giving the President the final say the Court is reserving that for itself. "You can be a dictator as long as we Six High Priests of Originalism like your decisions" isn't exactly Fuehrerprinzip.
And if Biden tries to leverage this alleged new power for his agenda we'll see the Court come down hard on him and pretend it's completely consistent with their previous decision because in conservativeland words no longer mean things.
I've seen a lot of adjectives applied to this decision and this court, but IMO, obscene is the most accurate. To paraphrase an earlier court's decision, "We know it when we see it."
💯 AGREED ! Total ABOMINATION of our ENTIRE SYSTEM OF DEMOCRACY ! It is up to President Biden to consider Checkmate NOW ! Checkmate: or risk ( monumental gamble), of the entire destruction of our entire system that is EXTREMELY CORRUPTED !
I think Supreme Court opened door for Biden to stay no matter what for good of country, I mean that has been this years election thing, doing what's best for country. Was not particular pleased how Biden had to rush to prevent fringe lunatics in Dem party to go open convention & screw things up.
It’s a shame that the stain of this stuff never seems to stick to the judges public legacy. I couldn’t have named anyone involved in Korematsu before looking it up.
I'd be willing to argue that but purely because Shelby v Holder, Dobbs, Trump v Anderson were also since Plessy. We've had a lot of "worst since"'s under the Roberts court
The right wing SCOTUS discovered with Bush v Gore it could just ignore the law and make up whatever it wanted for their side & nothing would happen. Rubicon got crossed over 20 years ago.
Your take is correct, but I think this article falls to a common misunderstanding of Trump v US. The goal of the judgment wasn’t to create a category called “official acts” upon which a President could rely, it was to center John Roberts and his friends as ultimate arbiters of what’s permitted.
So many people, including this writer, are making the mistake of believing they or anyone can tell you in advance what will and won’t be an “official act”. The judgment makes that impossible, by design. So it’s clear: I don’t think that’s better, but I do think it’s true.
Jack Smith is doing what he has to do: try to function inside a system that has dropped only bread crumbs to knowing what the Court will and won’t allow. But it’s impossible to say “if the VP had done X it would be official” because the running mate and the VP are and will always be the same person.
I agree with Mr Bouie that Trump v US is a terrible judgment but I think that not just because of the outcome but also because of this second outcome of centering the Court. In the common law, judgments are supposed to be guideposts for future behavior.
How is anyone supposed to know what will and won’t be illegal when the Court says “in the future we’ll have to look at it and decide”. This Court regularly fails at that extremely simple test, on purpose.
I say this and realize the minor hypocrisy of the fact that I designed Trust and Safety programs to center my own decision making, but that was precisely because I knew I wouldn’t know what the future held and wanted to preserve the right to be capricious. It’s why I recognize it in the Court.
my criticism of the ruling isn't "omg trump's immune" (the ruling never said that), but that it was basically "we have goalposts" and only vaguely gesturing at where the goalposts actually were
it's okay to name categories, but they should've at least given hypothetical examples of each
like, what use is this kind of instruction when it's all just random guessing
sure, "official acts" vs personal endeavors are different, and juries can usually find the difference. but the line between them is exceptionally gray, and jan 6 lands squarely in that gray area.
To me, a person with no legal training, when Smith cited Barrett's opinion it seemed he was doing exactly that. When I read hers, it seemed like she left some big clues.
Thanks for your reply. I don’t think this judgment was meant to provide any ability to know in advance what would constitute an “official act”. I’d love to know what parts of it you think hit that. I would have expected to see things like objective criteria, that I just don’t see.
Some vagueness. But lots of specificity too, as in the absolute exclusion of anything related to the department of justice, and the direction to take the broadest possible reading of official acts.
The special prosecutor’s office *had* to work within those constraints consciously in their new brief
Got it. I don’t know that I want to dispute this with you, but I read the judgment as excluding the Department of Justice unless it isn’t, for example. As in: even that can go back to the Court if they want it to.
I don’t think there’s air cover there to create a black ops murder squad and if it’s in the DOJ then nothing can be done, for example. I think if Trump did it they would be okay with things they won’t approve when Harris does it, for example.
Hopefully it and Trumpism can be put in the ground quickly rather than lingering for a hundred years but it will take stonking majorities and political will.
I’m pretty sick of pointing out the shortcomings of the NYT, but this ruling was given shockingly little coverage, coming as it did during their blanket coverage of Biden’s age.
it's just so obviously partisan it calls into question all their GOP-majority decisions. originalism is a grift, and these "smart" people are simply tools to subvert and tear down society.
instead of dealing with the world as it is, they want the world to conform to their preconceived notions.
Can't be worse than Marbury though. By their *own* textualist[1]/originalist logic, they do not have the power of judicial review and granting it to them would require an amendment. That's the root of most other problems with the court.
[1] Also, I'm going to start calling them pretextualists. 🤣
The logic is sound, but the procedure was not. Neither justices nor presidents should be granting themselves extra-constitutional powers. More importantly, my point was that it's *hypocritical* of them to play the textualist/originalist card after that, regardless of which position is correct.
Originalism was nonsensical bullshit that may have existed prior to Criminal Clarence’s senate hearings, but he put it into the national vocabulary back then. As has been repeated ad nauseam the founders themselves acknowledged the constitution was to be a living document. There is no Originalism.
It’s exceptional in that most of the 10 worst SCOTUS cases in history have dealt more or less directly with race. To reach that level of awful in a non-race case takes some doing.
It's why I think it's the worst ever. Dredd Scott was terrible but only affected a minority and could be overturned. Trump v. US could easily lead to the end of the Republic, which means we're all fucked forever.
This court is shameful. Also, it is hijacked. In the last 24 years the Republicans have won 1 popular vote for President yet occupy 6 of the 9 seats. And these are not a group of 6 center-right judges; they are extremist.
Hopefully, the day after the election, Biden uses his immunity powers to good effect. At that point, the voting is over, and he's coasting to the finish line. He can executive order the living shit out of the SCOTUS with presidential immunity, and just lock them in a box until the movers show up.
It's so absurd and simple as to be "the court did Trump a solid cause they like him and now presidents can do crimes so long as they say 'you're it' to a staffer"
SCOTUS immunized the president from criminal prosecution for official acts. This is unfounded and bad, but it doesn't mean that those official acts are therefore legal. The president must be restrained in other ways, starting with severe criminal penalties for following illegal orders.
This is wishful thinking. If Trump is elected he will use his unlimited pardon power to pardon everyone who carries out one of his illegal orders. If Trump is elected, there will be no stopping him from exercising dictatorial power.
Many moons ago I heard an ~incredible~ episode of a legal show on NPR @ a Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandering/elections/minorities so heinous that it landed 1 Justice in a psych facility bc he couldn't handle the slippery slope they created.
If you look at how many of the justices are Catholic it makes sense how this ruling aligns with the Doctrine of Papal infallibility. This is the idea that the pope is free from error when speaking on matters of morals and ethics (official acts).
And we were so worried in 1969 that JFK would be the pope’s puppet. 🤣🤣🤣 He figured out if he bought our Supreme Court, he could run the country just fine. Hard to believe the WASP oligarchs lost control after discriminating against Catholics for centuries following the founding of the country.
There was no way for the Supremes to draw a bright line between
Whiny Liberal Michael Moore making a * movie about The Evil Bush Family, vs
Whiny RWNJ Haters Citizens United making a ** movie about The Evil Hillary Clinton, vs
NYTimes and Fox News having editorial opinions.
Everything wrapped around Citizens United including rules about PACs, SuperPACS, GigaNastyPACs, and generally money laundering from corporate donors through corporate shells?
There's a lot of bad baggage, but the core decision was mostly ok.
Roberts will be remembered for crippling democracy in Shelby Cty. v Holder, and (maybe) killing it in Trump v. US. The only hope is a Harris win, the Dems winning both houses, and then fixing the federal courts. It’s hard to be optimistic about a 3 for 3.
Or Biden, if he would get off his dead ass and weaponize his DOJ to go after them. Hell, the GQP, and especially the 🍊💩 are already accusing him of weaponing the DOJ, which according to SCOTUS, is his right.
Joe is a good man and above all that but fortunately for democracy we’re not all like that. I seriously thought the shit would hit the fan when he was ‘prezident.’ We survived that putin, zuckerberg, Cambridge Analytica, kushner power grab but I’m in no mood to see it get very, very much worse.
This!!! After this insane SCOTUS decision, and with an executive branch loyal only to him, Trump will feel perfectly free to jail, or even execute any member of the judiciary, or the legislature who would dare try to prevent him from exercising absolute power.
Their reverence for the squirrel headed, spray tanned, slack jawed, gold plated, pussy grabbing, tax cheating, rube fleecing, bullshit spewing, lying coward of a golden calf, with prostrating obeisance will drop like scales when, like the pet leopard, he claws their neck and eats their face,
There is a universe composed of people and institutions who are nothing like the people in this one where "Separate but equal" is in some way sensical, but there is no world in which "conspiring to overthrow the constitution in constitutional" makes sense.
Yes. Apologies. Last minute edits and then I couldn’t reach my editor to correct it.
But it’s fixed now.
I actually wrote about Roberts’ role in the case earlier..!
I much prefer, as a scholar, writing things slowly, with lots of time to proofread…
Comments
It is trying to codify Führerprinzip within a US context. It is obscene.
"An 'official act' for a Republican president is going to be VERY different than what is considered such for a Democratic president."
Also: Korematsu
I do not think most Americans understand what this could mean if a man like Trump gets into the White House.
it's okay to name categories, but they should've at least given hypothetical examples of each
sure, "official acts" vs personal endeavors are different, and juries can usually find the difference. but the line between them is exceptionally gray, and jan 6 lands squarely in that gray area.
Any validity to my thinking?
The special prosecutor’s office *had* to work within those constraints consciously in their new brief
Danged unequivocal.
instead of dealing with the world as it is, they want the world to conform to their preconceived notions.
It's no longer a legitimate institution
[1] Also, I'm going to start calling them pretextualists. 🤣
There's really no reason to take any of its opinions seriously anymore. They're advisory; farcical; weightless.
https://bsky.app/profile/moved2italy.bsky.social/post/3l5s6e7wdls2q
More Perfect? Can't find it now or the Justice.
Whiny Liberal Michael Moore making a * movie about The Evil Bush Family, vs
Whiny RWNJ Haters Citizens United making a ** movie about The Evil Hillary Clinton, vs
NYTimes and Fox News having editorial opinions.
* pretty good. ** bad.
There's a lot of bad baggage, but the core decision was mostly ok.
Plessy still worse though.
But it’s fixed now.
I actually wrote about Roberts’ role in the case earlier..!
I much prefer, as a scholar, writing things slowly, with lots of time to proofread…
https://newrepublic.com/article/183357/supreme-court-turns-president-king