The January 6th case will not be tried before the election, but we knew that. The Supremes decided that presidents are immune from prosecution for their “official acts” and sent the J6 case back to the district court to decide which charges may apply. They explicitly said that his attempts to force the Department of Justice to lie for him and say that they found evidence of fraud when they did not are official acts. So I think it’s fair to say they believe the definition of “official” is extremely broad. It will take a bit to digest this but it’s clear that it’s pretty bad. If you don’t believe me, read this excerpt from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent: “When [the president] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
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The Supremes are now officially a rogue, radical court David Kurtz at TPM says it well: The most consequential decision yet from the six-justice Roberts supermajority was sandwiched between President Biden’s debate pratfall Thursday night and this morning’s Supreme Court decision on former President Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution. So before it gets wiped clean from the front pages, I want to just take a moment before the immunity decision comes down to re-cast the current court. The Supreme Court’s decision Friday to overrule Chevron will have vast consequences, many of then unseen or hard to detect, but one of the things we were discussing internally Friday as we assessed the Supreme Court’s term and its four years with a 6-3 conservative supermajority is how the defining characteristic isn’t conservatism at all but the accrual of power to the judiciary at the expense of the executive and legislative branches.
I’ve got a new piece up at The New Yorker on a new biography of Friedrich Hayek. I got a chance to range widely. From Hayek’s dalliance with the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet— In November, 1977, on a still-sticky evening along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, the Austrian economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek boarded a flight bound for Chile and settled into his seat in first class. He was headed to the Valparaíso Business School, where he was scheduled to receive an honorary degree. Upon arrival in Santiago, the Nobel laureate was greeted at the airport by the dean of the business school, Carlos Cáceres. They drove toward the Pacific Coast, stopping for a bite to eat in the city of Casablanca, […]
Democrats want to govern. Republicans want to rule. Confidence, even false confidence, inspires. As Bill McKibben once wrote: The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they’re talking about. They’re like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track. Democrats’ loud, public second-guessing themselves about Joe Biden looks desperate. It’s a bad look. So take a long, deep breath through your nose. Hold it a beat. Then exhale slowly through your mouth. Do it again. (Relax those shoulders.) If you lean Democrat, I know. It’s hard. Joe Biden had a bad night on Thursday. “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Barack Obama tweeted Friday afternoon. The president responded to his bad debate an hour or so earlier on Friday with a forceful speech in Raleigh, N.C. I was there right up front. His performances were literally night and day. This was the guy we’d hoped would show up to face Donald Trump.
Project 2025 authoritarians think a dumber populace is easier to control If you thought George W. Bush sending inexperienced, 20-something, quasi-libertarian loyalists to run the Iraq occupation worked out well, imagine what a second Trump administration would do to our own country. The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent spoke with Dave Roberts, a.k.a. Dr. Volts, this week not about the environment but about fascist plans to burn the U.S. government to the ground. The occasion was the Twitter thread below that Roberts posted on Wednesday. Do yourselves a favor and spend 25 minutes with it. That, of course, is the goal of the strongman: to destroy independent sources of information. It was the goal of Orwell’s Big Brother, to operate a totalitarian state with the power to define and redefine reality at will. There is no truth but what Dear Leader says it is. People who once decried the left as holding squishy morals will under Project 2025 swear themselves to whatever Dear Leader says is true today and to the opposite tomorrow if Dear Leader wills it.
Is it Party ID uber alles? It’s the most important thing, that’s for sure. We are living in a tribal era and the two tribes really don’t like each other. So maybe it doesn’t really matter who is on the ticket. It certainly doesn’t matter to me, not at this point. I will vote for the Democrat against Trump, no matter who it is because Trump and his MAGA movement are fascist and they must be stopped. As anyone who’s read me over the years knows, I don’t “love” politicians. I may like one or the other more or have a feeling about their symbolic value but as much as I might feel for them as human beings, as politicians I see them as instruments to achieve political goals. My number one goal right now is to beat Trump. And while I see Biden as having been a very good president, way beyond my expectations, I’m fine with him dropping out for someone else if that’s the best way to beat Trump. I’m also fine with keeping him on the ticket if the party ID factor remains the most important criteria because replacement carries its own risks.
Following up on my post below I thought I’d post this excerpt from Dan Pfeiffer’s newletter. His analysis is similar to mine. He too thinks that a brokered convention is way too risky and that the “Biden endorses Harris with the full support of the Democratic establishment” scenario is the only alternative to the wounded Biden soldiering on. He writes: There are two possible scenarios. The first is that Biden steps aside and endorses Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee, and the party coalesces around her. She would have to pick a Vice Presidential nominee and be ratified as the nominee by the delegates at the convention. That vote would be pro forma and drama-free. The race against Trump would start immediately. She would possibly get an opportunity to debate Trump at the scheduled debate in September. The other scenario is the circus sideshow of a brokered convention which would be very risky. Pfeiffer then discusses what Biden can do to right the ship if he decides to stay in: Boy, that last one is a real gut check. I disagree that Trump will duck more debates. I think he’ll be thrilled to do them every week.
Catherine Rampel tweeted this out and I think I think it’s fascinating: The kind of polling we need more of: @YouGov asked respondents about major policies proposed by Biden and Trump…without specifying which candidate proposed them.Turns out, in a blind test, Biden’s agenda is way more popular. today.yougov.com/politics/artic… 27 of 28 Biden proposals are supported by more people than oppose them. 24 get outright majority support. Most popular: criminal/mental health background checks for all gun purchases (82% approve). Least popular (the only one underwater, 30%): 10-yr military support for Ukraine Trump’s agenda doesn’t fare so well.9 of 28 proposals are above water (more support than oppose). Just 6 get majority supportEven most most popular (phase out Chinese imports of essential goods) gets meager 59%. Least pop (prez controls independent regulatory agencies): 19% People who plan to vote for each candidate are more likely to support most of their preferred candidate’s policies. And most supporters oppose many of the policies proposed by the opposing candidate. There are some policies that supporters find common ground on, however.
Aileen Cannon will be deciding whether your 747 is safe to fly The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that district court judges are more qualified to decide complex matters of science and technology than government experts. Here’s the result: Just think of all the health and safety rules we count on to keep us safe. Then think about all the unqualified MAGA weirdos Trump put on the courts and the bitter, angry Supreme Court majority that really seems to believe that it’s every man for himself.