As usual, Unpopulist fails to honestly engage its subject and actually inform its readers. For if it had, it would (a) note (& try to find & explain) the many people who actually agree with this ruling (across the ideological spectrum, not just ‘far right’ (whatever that means; unpopulist doesn’t describe it, also as per usual)), and (b) not try to scare ppl with misleading ad hominems like “only the far right” support this (which actually is a twofer logical fallacy in its reverse appeal to popularity as well!). When you’re relying on failed writers at Bulwark who are acknowledged Dem-lite center leftists as somehow representative of conservatism, you’ve def lost the plot. Instead it’d be nice if someone actually took the time to read the Roberts opinion and engage with it honestly about what it does & doesn’t say about presidential power.
For starters - the most important jurists in the country, the Supreme Court justices. Also Dershowitz, Turley, Rivkin, Foley, FedSoc, etc. to name just a few. None of those are ‘far right’ (which is a meaningless pejorative that doesn’t fly w/ thinking ppl).
You obviously didn’t even read the opinion, otherwise you wouldn’t have made such an embarrassing & easily disprovable statement like that. Much like many on this thread & this substack’s authors.
Immunity in the Paula Jones civil suit for sexual harassment? The Court found against that argument, holding that defending the case would not prove too great a distraction from his official duties. That turned out to be wrong. It was a huge distraction, and though the conduct that got Pres . Clinton disbarred (suborning perjury) related to Monica Lewinsky, it was all
Part of the same circus over sexual
misconduct. Chief Justice Roberts’ rationale for upholding immunity in criminal cases seems to track the
Clinton decision, likely based on a review of the actual impact on the conduct of official business, but also because the criminal charges are magnitudes more serious.
Also, aside from the incorrect premise(s)of the article - that reaction was roundly negative, appealed only to the “far right” (whatever that means nowadays), and that it frees the President to engage in all sorts of illegal conduct unchecked - the decision is a middle of the road position on a very thorny question. The uproar from progressives is even more astounding, coming as it does smack-dab in the middle their doing exactly what immunity is designed to protect against, i.e., engaging in politically-motivated prosecutions over highly political decisions/actions.
If a president truly believed that there were widespread electoral irregularities that looked a whole lot like fraud, in an election won by a small percentage of votes in a handful of swing states, why would challenging that result lie outside his official duty to ensure that the laws of the nation are faithfully executed? Sure, it’s political, but it’s also about the application, and subversion, of federal law. The term “political” applies to practically everything elected officials in high office do.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and Jake Sullivan) refused to fortify the embassy in Benghazi because they didn’t like the optics, then refused to dispatch reinforcements. Joe Biden agreed to Hillary Clinton’s manufactured scheme we now know as Russiagate. Would these actions be defined as within their official
Duties?
The reality is that the federal government is so large, with its fingers in so may different pies, that the office of the President has more exposure to creative legal challenges than any other entity on the planet, and the lower courts, human as they are, are neither omniscient, prescient, or free from fundamental errors. Any President needs significant protection via immunity, even (especially) Democrats. Careful
You are probably right in that it is more than just the far right, who would fail to find fault with the majority's opinion. After all, most of the justices were selected because of their ability to weave a cloth fairly impenetrable to the average mind. Actually, I am fairly surprised at the number of essays, such as the instant one, that are able to pierce the Court's vail of obfuscation
There’s no obfuscation - it’s actually v clear what they set up, a three pronged test, with only one of the prongs (official duties vs unofficial duties) having some ambiguity which requires deeper investigations or evidence to prove, as it always has and would always require for partisans who don’t totally lose their shit every time someone they don’t like holds the presidency. And that includes starting by understanding & accurately describing what the court did & didn’t say, which these partisans fail to do.
Their obfuscation is inherent in their position that what they are doing is not unconstitutional. Nowhere in the constitution does it conflate the power to do an act with the power to do that act corruptly or criminally, as the court does.
The Constitution gives the president the power of pardons, but everything in the common law and the commentary of the founders belies the position that the president may lawfully grant pardons in exchange for bribes or grant pardons to co- conspirators to prevent them from giving evidence against him.
Lol, that was a lot of word salad to say there’s a principle of precedence. But what you missed in all that obfuscation is that (a) precedence is not binding, esp when immoral, illogical, & / or unconstitutional, & (b) there is no precedent here, hence the need for the scotus to set out the rules for this situation going fwd. Do better next time, much better.
Two practical realities concern me. Not only is the President above the law but, through the pardon power, a whole class of criminals would also be above the law if they are associated with the President. Gerald Ford's preemptive pardon of Nixon is the precedent for such pardons.
The other thing that concerns me is that each branch of the government has specified immunities. If the standard is now that the actions of Congress persons must be presumed to be within their official actions and no evidence can be used to establish an underlying crime then the Congressman who may have been showing insurrectionists the best ways to take over the Capitol could never be held to account. Maybe Senator Menendez has a defense after all.
Justice Thomas's acceptance of gifts must be presumed to be part of his official duties and no evidence from an investigation of those acts can be used to determine an underlying crime.
Other than suffering a hit to their reputation this will have no consequences for them in the real world.
The impeachment clauses are dead law that can never be made to work
Trump already pardoned a nauseating parade of cronies during his first term (Arpaio, Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Bannon…). In his next term these unrepentant shysters will loot the nation without fear, for they know there will be no consequences.
It seems that we may soon have the answer to the "if" in Benjamin Franklin's "“A republic, if you can keep it.” Sure looks like Roberts et al have set us on track to become a monarchy. So, is Don Jr. on tap to take up the throne when his father dies? Or will Ivanka be given the honors?
Jeepers. Other than not electing the SOB are there any protective actions that anyone can take to insulate the nation and the People from him? If he loses the election and EC, I’m anticipating a prolonged fight much worse than occurred in 2020/21. It’s conceivable Kevin Roberts’ impending bloodshed speech on July 2 could come to fruition. Neighbor against neighbor? Intra family warfare? I’m not convinced ignoring these possibilities is a good idea given the SOB’s goon squads and the idiotic zombie nature of the MAGAtainian hordes.
I always thought that the Supreme Court, as one of its duties, should guide the nation in the interpretation of its Laws and Constitution.
I suppose it follows that the Supreme Court should also tell us what not to do. In this, the Supreme Court has provided an admirably misguided ruling.
Future courts and a future Supreme Court will have to untangle the oblique and disturbing legal thicket that this Court’s majority has created.
The most serious problem is that the Supreme Court has, in this decision, surrendered the tools and the credibility required to resolve any future Constitutional crisis.
The Nation will be very lucky if it never has to confront the “if you can keep it” part of Benjamin Franklin’s dictum.
Also between the immunity ruling and their previous ruling that gifts given after performing an official act cannot be considered bribes it seems that bribery has been legalized so long as the parties involved followed the right procedure.
Following is my commentary that I have been sharing on social media, although those posts include an image of the very beginning of our Declaration of Independence, through the phrase "that all men are created equal." —
On July 1, 2024, the deeply misguided Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision that negated a precedent in the form of an official tradition that has served our country well for our entire history of 248 years, since our Continental Congress declared the United States to be an independent nation, a nation to be governed under the rule of laws that are to be based on the "self-evident" principle "that all men are created equal." This includes the president.
Those justices of the majority who have handed down this decision have disgraced themselves, they have disgraced the highest court of our nation, and they have disgraced the high ideals upon which our country has been founded. They have also rendered their claims to be originalists to be entirely meaningless. The legitimacy of our Supreme Court has now clearly been destroyed. Impeach now!
Carl, (may I call you Carl? The alternatives aren’t great, either). So, Carl, having read what you are sharing on social media (the great equalizer, like a massive Walmart in the sky), and considered your argument: yes, we are all created equal, with the same rights under the law. Those rights include due process, the right to confront those testifying against you, the right to be free of arbitrary government action or official vendetta, to speak one’s mind and conscience, to be free from Illegal search and seizure, and the right to democratically select our representatives in government through free and fair elections . . . Anything in there ring a bell? Yes/no? Because the Democrats and political Left have made a joke of each - to “protect democracy”, of course.
My request is two-fold: 1) please, for all that is right and proper, good and holy, mom and apple pie, STOP trying to protect us. We’re adults, and don’t need hysterics running around professing to act in our interest but having it so very, very wrong; and 2) you shouldn’t widely share what you wrote, heartfelt as it seems, because while your heart may be in the right place, your brain has obviously shit the bed.
Thank you for your time and consideration. We hope to not hear from you again.
Roberts is not an honorable man by any stretch of the imagination
As usual, Unpopulist fails to honestly engage its subject and actually inform its readers. For if it had, it would (a) note (& try to find & explain) the many people who actually agree with this ruling (across the ideological spectrum, not just ‘far right’ (whatever that means; unpopulist doesn’t describe it, also as per usual)), and (b) not try to scare ppl with misleading ad hominems like “only the far right” support this (which actually is a twofer logical fallacy in its reverse appeal to popularity as well!). When you’re relying on failed writers at Bulwark who are acknowledged Dem-lite center leftists as somehow representative of conservatism, you’ve def lost the plot. Instead it’d be nice if someone actually took the time to read the Roberts opinion and engage with it honestly about what it does & doesn’t say about presidential power.
Well played
‘Many people’ doing some heavy lifting here. Wonder if you can name one?
For starters - the most important jurists in the country, the Supreme Court justices. Also Dershowitz, Turley, Rivkin, Foley, FedSoc, etc. to name just a few. None of those are ‘far right’ (which is a meaningless pejorative that doesn’t fly w/ thinking ppl).
You don’t think Alito and Thomas (at minimum) are far right?
Weird take.
You keep using a term that has no meaning & you won’t define it but somehow keep insisting on using it? Weird take.
You obviously didn’t even read the opinion, otherwise you wouldn’t have made such an embarrassing & easily disprovable statement like that. Much like many on this thread & this substack’s authors.
Didn’t Bill Clinton claim
Immunity in the Paula Jones civil suit for sexual harassment? The Court found against that argument, holding that defending the case would not prove too great a distraction from his official duties. That turned out to be wrong. It was a huge distraction, and though the conduct that got Pres . Clinton disbarred (suborning perjury) related to Monica Lewinsky, it was all
Part of the same circus over sexual
misconduct. Chief Justice Roberts’ rationale for upholding immunity in criminal cases seems to track the
Clinton decision, likely based on a review of the actual impact on the conduct of official business, but also because the criminal charges are magnitudes more serious.
Also, aside from the incorrect premise(s)of the article - that reaction was roundly negative, appealed only to the “far right” (whatever that means nowadays), and that it frees the President to engage in all sorts of illegal conduct unchecked - the decision is a middle of the road position on a very thorny question. The uproar from progressives is even more astounding, coming as it does smack-dab in the middle their doing exactly what immunity is designed to protect against, i.e., engaging in politically-motivated prosecutions over highly political decisions/actions.
If a president truly believed that there were widespread electoral irregularities that looked a whole lot like fraud, in an election won by a small percentage of votes in a handful of swing states, why would challenging that result lie outside his official duty to ensure that the laws of the nation are faithfully executed? Sure, it’s political, but it’s also about the application, and subversion, of federal law. The term “political” applies to practically everything elected officials in high office do.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (and Jake Sullivan) refused to fortify the embassy in Benghazi because they didn’t like the optics, then refused to dispatch reinforcements. Joe Biden agreed to Hillary Clinton’s manufactured scheme we now know as Russiagate. Would these actions be defined as within their official
Duties?
The reality is that the federal government is so large, with its fingers in so may different pies, that the office of the President has more exposure to creative legal challenges than any other entity on the planet, and the lower courts, human as they are, are neither omniscient, prescient, or free from fundamental errors. Any President needs significant protection via immunity, even (especially) Democrats. Careful
What you wish for.
Read project 2025
What does that even mean, & what is the relevance to this topic??
You are probably right in that it is more than just the far right, who would fail to find fault with the majority's opinion. After all, most of the justices were selected because of their ability to weave a cloth fairly impenetrable to the average mind. Actually, I am fairly surprised at the number of essays, such as the instant one, that are able to pierce the Court's vail of obfuscation
There’s no obfuscation - it’s actually v clear what they set up, a three pronged test, with only one of the prongs (official duties vs unofficial duties) having some ambiguity which requires deeper investigations or evidence to prove, as it always has and would always require for partisans who don’t totally lose their shit every time someone they don’t like holds the presidency. And that includes starting by understanding & accurately describing what the court did & didn’t say, which these partisans fail to do.
Their obfuscation is inherent in their position that what they are doing is not unconstitutional. Nowhere in the constitution does it conflate the power to do an act with the power to do that act corruptly or criminally, as the court does.
The Constitution gives the president the power of pardons, but everything in the common law and the commentary of the founders belies the position that the president may lawfully grant pardons in exchange for bribes or grant pardons to co- conspirators to prevent them from giving evidence against him.
Lol, that was a lot of word salad to say there’s a principle of precedence. But what you missed in all that obfuscation is that (a) precedence is not binding, esp when immoral, illogical, & / or unconstitutional, & (b) there is no precedent here, hence the need for the scotus to set out the rules for this situation going fwd. Do better next time, much better.
Two practical realities concern me. Not only is the President above the law but, through the pardon power, a whole class of criminals would also be above the law if they are associated with the President. Gerald Ford's preemptive pardon of Nixon is the precedent for such pardons.
The other thing that concerns me is that each branch of the government has specified immunities. If the standard is now that the actions of Congress persons must be presumed to be within their official actions and no evidence can be used to establish an underlying crime then the Congressman who may have been showing insurrectionists the best ways to take over the Capitol could never be held to account. Maybe Senator Menendez has a defense after all.
Justice Thomas's acceptance of gifts must be presumed to be part of his official duties and no evidence from an investigation of those acts can be used to determine an underlying crime.
Other than suffering a hit to their reputation this will have no consequences for them in the real world.
The impeachment clauses are dead law that can never be made to work
Trump already pardoned a nauseating parade of cronies during his first term (Arpaio, Flynn, Manafort, Stone, Bannon…). In his next term these unrepentant shysters will loot the nation without fear, for they know there will be no consequences.
It seems that we may soon have the answer to the "if" in Benjamin Franklin's "“A republic, if you can keep it.” Sure looks like Roberts et al have set us on track to become a monarchy. So, is Don Jr. on tap to take up the throne when his father dies? Or will Ivanka be given the honors?
Jeepers. Other than not electing the SOB are there any protective actions that anyone can take to insulate the nation and the People from him? If he loses the election and EC, I’m anticipating a prolonged fight much worse than occurred in 2020/21. It’s conceivable Kevin Roberts’ impending bloodshed speech on July 2 could come to fruition. Neighbor against neighbor? Intra family warfare? I’m not convinced ignoring these possibilities is a good idea given the SOB’s goon squads and the idiotic zombie nature of the MAGAtainian hordes.
Incorrect. I’ll say why shortly.
As in the premise of the article, and the analysis therein.
I always thought that the Supreme Court, as one of its duties, should guide the nation in the interpretation of its Laws and Constitution.
I suppose it follows that the Supreme Court should also tell us what not to do. In this, the Supreme Court has provided an admirably misguided ruling.
Future courts and a future Supreme Court will have to untangle the oblique and disturbing legal thicket that this Court’s majority has created.
The most serious problem is that the Supreme Court has, in this decision, surrendered the tools and the credibility required to resolve any future Constitutional crisis.
The Nation will be very lucky if it never has to confront the “if you can keep it” part of Benjamin Franklin’s dictum.
Also between the immunity ruling and their previous ruling that gifts given after performing an official act cannot be considered bribes it seems that bribery has been legalized so long as the parties involved followed the right procedure.
Following is my commentary that I have been sharing on social media, although those posts include an image of the very beginning of our Declaration of Independence, through the phrase "that all men are created equal." —
On July 1, 2024, the deeply misguided Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision that negated a precedent in the form of an official tradition that has served our country well for our entire history of 248 years, since our Continental Congress declared the United States to be an independent nation, a nation to be governed under the rule of laws that are to be based on the "self-evident" principle "that all men are created equal." This includes the president.
Those justices of the majority who have handed down this decision have disgraced themselves, they have disgraced the highest court of our nation, and they have disgraced the high ideals upon which our country has been founded. They have also rendered their claims to be originalists to be entirely meaningless. The legitimacy of our Supreme Court has now clearly been destroyed. Impeach now!
Carl, (may I call you Carl? The alternatives aren’t great, either). So, Carl, having read what you are sharing on social media (the great equalizer, like a massive Walmart in the sky), and considered your argument: yes, we are all created equal, with the same rights under the law. Those rights include due process, the right to confront those testifying against you, the right to be free of arbitrary government action or official vendetta, to speak one’s mind and conscience, to be free from Illegal search and seizure, and the right to democratically select our representatives in government through free and fair elections . . . Anything in there ring a bell? Yes/no? Because the Democrats and political Left have made a joke of each - to “protect democracy”, of course.
My request is two-fold: 1) please, for all that is right and proper, good and holy, mom and apple pie, STOP trying to protect us. We’re adults, and don’t need hysterics running around professing to act in our interest but having it so very, very wrong; and 2) you shouldn’t widely share what you wrote, heartfelt as it seems, because while your heart may be in the right place, your brain has obviously shit the bed.
Thank you for your time and consideration. We hope to not hear from you again.
Sincerely,
The U.S. of MFn A
What can we do about it?
Maybe Biden will get in the spirit of this ruling and have Roberts sent to Club Gitmo.