Good morning, from my joint perched between the two stadiums in Seattle. There appears to be a lot going on and the world is waiting on baited breath for the Supreme Court to finally release a few decisions that it has deliberately been sitting on for much longer than they should have.
For example: Is a president immune from being held accountable for his or her criminal activity while in office?
There is a second part to that question before the Court: If a president is immune from being prosecuted for his or her alleged criminal activity while in office, does that extend to after he or she leaves office?
Believe it or not, there is yet a third part of that question: Does a former president enjoy immunity from his or her crimes after leaving office if it involves material derived from when he or she was in office?
MOST legal scholars believe that a POTUS is no different from any other citizen, and yes, can be held accountable for their illegal actions while serving in office and/or after leaving office. But there is a Donald Trump out there who believes that once being sworn in as POTUS, he is immune from criminal prosecution for any crime from that point on. At least that is his legal argument before the Court.
We will find out today what the Court thinks. If they do rule that a POTUS enjoys blanket immunity both during and after serving in office, then you an expect the entire criminal justice system to blow up.
So gird yourselves, in about an hour or so, we will find out whether we become a banana republic or not…
Fun stuff.
On to the news.
More Debate Aftermath and Fallout:
- Biden camp lashes out — and Obama alums push back
- 72% of Americans Don’t Think Biden Has the ‘Mental and Cognitive Health’ to Be President
But hey, let’s just listen to the family decide on whether to saddle us with someone who is having trouble getting a thought out of the door.
Well, honestly, this could cover EVERY modern White House. Once someone becomes POTUS, they are pretty much shielded from outside news and influences. If you do happen to get an audience with a POTUS, it is heavily choreographed and managed by staff.
Among the family’s complaints about the debate practice: that Biden was not prepared to pivot more to go on the attack; that he was bogged down too much on defending his record rather than outlining a vision for a second term; and that he was over-worked and not well-rested.
This is the typical “kitchen sink defense”.
“He had a cold.” “He was tired.” “The questions were confusing”… Every excuse BUT the most simple and the most obvious one: The man is not up to the task because of his AGE, and nothing more.
Occam’s razor is a principle of theory construction or evaluation according to which, other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more.
How does one feel ‘dignified’ by being basically frog-marched off the ballot because of your failing cognitive abilities due to age?
If you were to have asked me five years ago whether we should be requiring cognitive testing for presidential candidates, I probably would have said no. But given the fact that we have now had TWO presidents who are in the twilight of their lives and are each showing signs of mental decline — yet are still running to serve another four years in office — I think that we probably SHOULD.
- The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly Maureen Dowd
- The Fossil vs. The Felon Matt Labash
We have no good choices, and are in deep doo-doo
Editor’s Note: Have a question about how to overcome brain freeze? Ask Joe Biden, whose staffers probably now have him sitting in a hot car with the windows rolled up. For all other health and wellness questions, Ask Matt Labash at askmattlabash@gmail.com
Okay, now that is funny.
The Supreme Court News
The Court has to be really careful here or they will unleash something that they will have no idea how to contain.
For example: Imaging the Court ruling today that a President enjoys complete and total immunity for his or her actions as POTUS. Then imagine President Biden ordering the murder of Donald J. Trump and the rest of his merry band of idiots.
Too far-fetched? Not if a president has immunity, and an agenda.
Trump’s appeal of his immunity claim delayed the trial by six months, which is much longer than the the high court took to decide high profile cases involving the Pentagon Papers and Watergate tapes.
This was obviously by the Court’s design. I suspect that the Court has no other choice but to rule against Trump in this case, and they wanted/needed to give him enough space to allow for his re-election and subsequent self-pardon for his crimes. Mark my words.
The TL;DR version is this:
- Trump’s out of luck: No immunity
The simplest outcome would be for the Supreme Court to rule that former presidents are not entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution.
- Nixon and the ‘outer perimeter’ of power
But the justices could reach more broadly by granting some degree of immunity for “official” actions. Based on the oral arguments, it appeared there was support for doing so.
- How Trump can ‘lose by winning’
No matter what the majority of the Supreme Court decides about immunity for official conduct, at least a portion of the charges against Trump could proceed if some of his actions were private – that is, steps he took as a candidate or private citizen rather than as a president.
- Sending it back for trial
“One option is the court itself says: ‘These are official; these are private. These get immunity; these don’t. The end,” said Alison LaCroix, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School who is also a scholar of legal history.
“Another option is the court lays out a standard for immunity … and tells the trial court, ‘You figure out whether these were official or unofficial,” she said.
The Other Crap You May Consider News
A similar phenomenon is at play in the politics of the West. We have built the most peaceful, most prosperous, most humane, most progressive civilisation the world has ever known, after centuries of battle – physical, moral and philosophical; carnage and bloodshed.
And now, just 80 years after Auschwitz and 30-odd years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are apparently already bored of our hard-won liberty and stability. The zeitgeist of the current age is to smash things up while pretending to be building a better world.
History really does repeat itself.
He really does need to take a shower. They do have them in the Federal Correctional Institution where he is heading, and he is probably going to find out really quick that the other inmates around him will insist that he cleans his nasty ass up.
The only person worse than one shitting in a shower is one who refuses to take one. Both will end up with shanks in them.
What the Fuck Did I Just Stream?
That 90s Show – Netflix
Memes From the Memebox:
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