By Lambert Strether of Corrente
Too-patient readers, I’ve spent the day recovering from the bout of food poisoning I had last night (which is all that it was, fortunately), and so this Water Cooler is mostly an open thread. However, I will put up the Supreme Court’s decision on Presidential immunity. Also, last night before I was taken out of commission I had intended to write a post discussing the Democrat Party and Biden’s decision-making process about continuing his campaign. If any of you have facts (not hot takes) about that topic, please leave them in comments. –lambert P.S. Also, Wednesday is a travel day for me, and I may or may not have connectivity issues, so I will try to make tomorrow’s Water Cooler extra long to make up for coverage I have missed, especially of Covid.
Bird Song of the Day
Common Loon, Schoolcraft, Michigan, United States. No, not editorializing in the slightest!
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Hasty reactions, not well thought out:
Trump v. United States, Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The District Of Columbia Circuit (PDF) [Supreme Court of the United States].
An obvious starting point in the age of lawfare, I should have thought?
“Justices rule Trump has some immunity from prosecution” [SCOTUSblog].
In a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.
The decision left open the possibility that the charges brought against former President Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith – alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election – can still go forward to the extent that the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official acts.
The case now returns to the lower courts for them to determine whether the conduct at the center of the charges against Trump was official or unofficial – an inquiry that, even if it leads to the conclusion that the charges can proceed, will almost certainly further delay any trial in the case, which had originally been scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024 but is currently on hold.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the president “is not above the law.” But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, countered that if a future president “misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.””
In terms of the various criminal cases on-going against Trump:
Some good news in SCOTUS opinion: 1. No immunity for unofficial acts; pressuring state officials, fake electors scheme, public statements made as a candidate likely qualify;2. Immunity for official acts is only presumptive. Conduct must fall within “conclusive and preclusive…
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) July 1, 2024
“Nixon interviews” [WikiPedia]. “In part 3, Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides ‘it’s in the best interests of the nation or something’. Nixon replied: ‘Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,’ by definition.[24][25]” (note that WikiPedia adds “by definition”). • Stoller comments:
For kicks the Supreme Court retroactively made Watergate legal.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 1, 2024
And speaking of Special Prosecutors:
For kicks the Supreme Court retroactively made Watergate legal.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 1, 2024
Seems like a contradiction:
So agencies can’t do anything even with congressional direction but the president can do anything he wants, no matter what the law is.
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) July 1, 2024
On the bright side, does the Executive Branch now have the authority to seize all the powers the Supreme Court just took away from the regulatory agencies by nuking the Chevron Doctrine. Surely they could set on an OMB to do that, just two or three orders of magnitude larger?
UPDATE And then of course:
If you’re shocked by the Supreme Court’s ruling today, wait till you find out that 10 years ago in federal court “lawyers for the Obama administration (were) arguing for their ability to kill an American citizen without trial.” https://t.co/wxKWgizhix
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) July 1, 2024
See “The Twenty-First Century Executive Branch Is a Criminogenic Environment” at NC.
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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From Teton Time:
To compensate, there are a lot of plants!
Teton Time writes:
Kids and I have had a habit of collecting seed from plants we find on hikes in the forests here. The pollinators like to use them and do so with gusto.
We collected these seeds a few years ago. I have a testing area to see what light and soil conditions, etc these plants like. Often very frustrating and lots of fail.
We collected some of these daisy heads from the wild I think three years ago. You know they are hardy when they survive your attempts to remove them from the testing beds. I could not quite believe how good they look in the bed at the front of our property. The thing about native plants – once going they are good. In fact the job often becomes pulling them when they are out of bounds.
After another 20-30 years I should have this place up and going. Committed to all natural and native plants. It is my thing. Very large amounts of work but will be worth it one day. I have also included the peonies and poppies that are now blooming big. These are heirloom plants that have been crossbred by me. Their seeds are true. However, these are not native. But they both do very well here. The pollinators like the wild flowers much better than these man made things. Is there a lesson there?
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