Snippet from the end of the article and I know this is a VERY obvious statement but I’m posting it anyway!
William S. Becker, opinion contributor
* So, what was the Supreme Court’s rationale in Trump v. United States? Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that a president must be able to “carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution” and take “bold and unhesitating action.”
* Are lawlessness, extortion and corruption disguised as “official acts” what Roberts had in mind? Should a president be able to purge civil servants by the thousands without just cause? Or collect lavish gifts from foreign governments? Or ignore the due process rights of immigrants?
* *In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accurately described the court’s 6-3 ruling as “****a loaded weapon*** *for any president that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain above the interests of the nation.”*
* History will not be kind to the Roberts court, nor should it be. It has failed as the republic’s last line of defense against despots. Worse, it handed the tools of autocracy to a man with criminal proclivities and no moral compass.
* The Supreme Court should admit its error and restore the principle that no one, not even the president, is exempt from the rule of law.
ShippFFXI on
No shit, Sherlock. This is only what everyone aside from MAGA said prior to, during, and after the ruling.
barryvm on
> a president must be able to “carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution” and take “bold and unhesitating action.”
Action for action’s sake and contempt for the law are very import to fascism. How else are they going to project an image of power as they stoke division, do violence as a quid-pro-quo for social policy, reward the rich and connected with boundless corruption, and run the country off a cliff? And since fascism is the only viable faction within the broader right these days due to the evident ruin of the latter’s socioeconomic policies, it has to be enabled in order to maintain those policies despite an ever growing electoral backlash. The solution to their unpopularity is not to change course, but to abolish democracy and give people some other target to vent their rage at.
greenman5252 on
Not according to project 2025, this is the way forward. This plus work camps and gratis motorcoaches.
Deinosoar on
It was not a fucking mistake. It was very much intentional raping of justice.
StrangerFew2424 on
Ya don’t say..
ME24601 on
Hard to call it a “mistake” when they knew exactly what the consequences were and did it anyway.
RDOCallToArms on
The voters made a horrible mistake when they don’t take SCOTUS into consideration when deciding to stay home or hold their noses and vote for a Democrat they don’t love (Gore, Kerry, H.Clinton)
Reshaping the SCOTUS into a radical conservative body has been the long game (and an obvious one at that) of the conservative movement.
The conservative movement has done an excellent (in an evil kind of way) job of drilling home the importance of the SCOTUS and using it as a motivation to get their voters in line to vote for candidates they might not otherwise love.
RiseDelicious3556 on
This was an integral part of the fascist coup that has taken place in America
Frustratedtx on
Conservatives and horrible mistakes, name a more iconic duo.
victotronics on
“By now, the U.S. Supreme Court surely must see” Who are you calling Shirley?
Anyway. Is there any indication that they surely see this? Otherwise contentless article.
Callabrantus on
They got theirs, and they’re pulling up the ladder.
Quesabirria on
and by “mistake” they mean something they’ve been looking to do for a long time
Original_Bicycle5696 on
“Mistake”
Sure seemed intentional at the time.
Hume_Fume on
The whole point of a Democracy is to prevent anyone from having absolute power, they’ve literally ignored the Constitution.
espinaustin on
> History will not be kind to the Roberts court, nor should it be. It has failed as the republic’s last line of defense against despots. Worse, it handed the tools of autocracy to a man with criminal proclivities and no moral compass.
> The Supreme Court should admit its error and restore the principle that no one, not even the president, is exempt from the rule of law.
Hear Hear
ReleaseFromDeception on
He doesn’t have absolute power – yet.
He DOES have conditional immunity though. That’s a very important first step.
Miguel-odon on
It wasn’t a mistake. It was intentional. They knew exactly what they were doing.
doch92 on
The Supreme Court made a choice. They knew damn well what they were doing.
QuantumConversation on
History will label this court as the corrupt fascist institution that it’s become. They gave a toddler a loaded weapon.
nononotes on
Mistakes are accidents. This wasn’t an accident.
RustedRelics on
Roberts has been advocating for this his entire career. His folksy, reasonable manner before his confirmation hearing was total b.s. He never had any plan or even an inclination toward “just calling balls and strikes.”
Exodys03 on
It might be forgiveable if the Supreme Court issued this decision with the background of a purely hypothetical case of a President misusing the immunity granted to him/her. We wouldn’t expect most elected leaders to just go on a crime spree because they have immunity from prosecution.
The context, however, was the very real case of Donald J. Trump, who had 91 active felony charges from his first time because he ignored any legal restraints and was seeking absolute immunity to escape those charges while running for President again. His abusing Presidential immunity if he won the case and re-election was pretty much a certain yet conservative justices on the Supreme Court handed him a laminating crime license. His lawyers argued that he should be able to order the assassination of a political rival for godsakes and, while he hasn’t done that yet, he’s taken full advantage of the crime license that the Supreme Court gave him.
rocksoffjagger on
No fucking shit. They made a horrible mistake when they gave ANY president absolute power, because that’s called a “dictator.”
unaskthequestion on
Roberts has been wrong in so many of his opinions. In Citizens United, he said calls that foreign campaign contributions would soar, ‘completely wrong’. Guess what? They did.
In overturning the enforcement portion of the Voting Rights Act, he said it was no longer necessary to monitor the states. Days after the decision, states closed hundreds of polling stations, almost all in minority districts.
Nothing like a chief Justice living in a fantasy world and forcing us to live there too.
25 Comments
Snippet from the end of the article and I know this is a VERY obvious statement but I’m posting it anyway!
William S. Becker, opinion contributor
* So, what was the Supreme Court’s rationale in Trump v. United States? Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that a president must be able to “carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution” and take “bold and unhesitating action.”
* Are lawlessness, extortion and corruption disguised as “official acts” what Roberts had in mind? Should a president be able to purge civil servants by the thousands without just cause? Or collect lavish gifts from foreign governments? Or ignore the due process rights of immigrants?
* *In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accurately described the court’s 6-3 ruling as “****a loaded weapon*** *for any president that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain above the interests of the nation.”*
* History will not be kind to the Roberts court, nor should it be. It has failed as the republic’s last line of defense against despots. Worse, it handed the tools of autocracy to a man with criminal proclivities and no moral compass.
* The Supreme Court should admit its error and restore the principle that no one, not even the president, is exempt from the rule of law.
No shit, Sherlock. This is only what everyone aside from MAGA said prior to, during, and after the ruling.
> a president must be able to “carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution” and take “bold and unhesitating action.”
Action for action’s sake and contempt for the law are very import to fascism. How else are they going to project an image of power as they stoke division, do violence as a quid-pro-quo for social policy, reward the rich and connected with boundless corruption, and run the country off a cliff? And since fascism is the only viable faction within the broader right these days due to the evident ruin of the latter’s socioeconomic policies, it has to be enabled in order to maintain those policies despite an ever growing electoral backlash. The solution to their unpopularity is not to change course, but to abolish democracy and give people some other target to vent their rage at.
Not according to project 2025, this is the way forward. This plus work camps and gratis motorcoaches.
It was not a fucking mistake. It was very much intentional raping of justice.
Ya don’t say..
Hard to call it a “mistake” when they knew exactly what the consequences were and did it anyway.
The voters made a horrible mistake when they don’t take SCOTUS into consideration when deciding to stay home or hold their noses and vote for a Democrat they don’t love (Gore, Kerry, H.Clinton)
Reshaping the SCOTUS into a radical conservative body has been the long game (and an obvious one at that) of the conservative movement.
The conservative movement has done an excellent (in an evil kind of way) job of drilling home the importance of the SCOTUS and using it as a motivation to get their voters in line to vote for candidates they might not otherwise love.
This was an integral part of the fascist coup that has taken place in America
Conservatives and horrible mistakes, name a more iconic duo.
“By now, the U.S. Supreme Court surely must see” Who are you calling Shirley?
Anyway. Is there any indication that they surely see this? Otherwise contentless article.
They got theirs, and they’re pulling up the ladder.
and by “mistake” they mean something they’ve been looking to do for a long time
“Mistake”
Sure seemed intentional at the time.
The whole point of a Democracy is to prevent anyone from having absolute power, they’ve literally ignored the Constitution.
> History will not be kind to the Roberts court, nor should it be. It has failed as the republic’s last line of defense against despots. Worse, it handed the tools of autocracy to a man with criminal proclivities and no moral compass.
> The Supreme Court should admit its error and restore the principle that no one, not even the president, is exempt from the rule of law.
Hear Hear
He doesn’t have absolute power – yet.
He DOES have conditional immunity though. That’s a very important first step.
It wasn’t a mistake. It was intentional. They knew exactly what they were doing.
The Supreme Court made a choice. They knew damn well what they were doing.
History will label this court as the corrupt fascist institution that it’s become. They gave a toddler a loaded weapon.
Mistakes are accidents. This wasn’t an accident.
Roberts has been advocating for this his entire career. His folksy, reasonable manner before his confirmation hearing was total b.s. He never had any plan or even an inclination toward “just calling balls and strikes.”
It might be forgiveable if the Supreme Court issued this decision with the background of a purely hypothetical case of a President misusing the immunity granted to him/her. We wouldn’t expect most elected leaders to just go on a crime spree because they have immunity from prosecution.
The context, however, was the very real case of Donald J. Trump, who had 91 active felony charges from his first time because he ignored any legal restraints and was seeking absolute immunity to escape those charges while running for President again. His abusing Presidential immunity if he won the case and re-election was pretty much a certain yet conservative justices on the Supreme Court handed him a laminating crime license. His lawyers argued that he should be able to order the assassination of a political rival for godsakes and, while he hasn’t done that yet, he’s taken full advantage of the crime license that the Supreme Court gave him.
No fucking shit. They made a horrible mistake when they gave ANY president absolute power, because that’s called a “dictator.”
Roberts has been wrong in so many of his opinions. In Citizens United, he said calls that foreign campaign contributions would soar, ‘completely wrong’. Guess what? They did.
In overturning the enforcement portion of the Voting Rights Act, he said it was no longer necessary to monitor the states. Days after the decision, states closed hundreds of polling stations, almost all in minority districts.
Nothing like a chief Justice living in a fantasy world and forcing us to live there too.