RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thespectator.com/topic/scotus-robust-decision-presidential-immunity/

All is unfolding as I have foreseen. Yesterday, reviewing last week’s Supreme Court decisions and indulging in a little well-earned Schadenfreude over Thursday’s scenes from the geriatric dementia ward, I noted that what SCOTUS would probably issue its final opinion of the season, on the question of presidential immunity.

So it turned out to be. This morning, “Trump v. United States” dropped. For the first time, the Court pondered the question, “Does a president have immunity from prosecution?” or, to use the language of the opinion, “Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

The answer was more or less what I predicted. I wrote that, while no one outside the hallowed halls of the Court really knew how the Court would come down on the issue, “most observers expect the Supremes to recognize immunity for ‘official acts’ but to remand to the lower court the vexed question of what counts as an ‘official’ and therefore protected act.” 

That is precisely how the Court decided, 6-3 (Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissenting), though in fact the opinion was even more robustly phrased than I could have hoped. “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers,” the Syllabus of the opinion reads, “the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” The one caveat was this: “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.” 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/01/anti-israel-rioters-block-pride-parade-in-new-york-city-vandalize-floats/

In one of the final celebrations of “pride month” in New York City on Sunday, a clash broke out between the pro-gay parade participants and anti-Israel rioters who blocked the parade route and vandalized several floats.

As reported by Fox News, the rioters could be seen sitting in the street to block the progression of the parade, chanting various anti-Semitic slogans such as “Free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea.” Several of them could be seen using spray-paint to vandalize floats, while others climbed over barricades and threw fake blood at the displays. Dozens of rioters were ultimately arrested by police, who used zip-ties to handcuff them.

“It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events,” said Sandra Perez, executive director of NYC Pride. “But we were born out of a protest.”

This year’s pride demonstration was the 54th annual parade in New York City, with the very first one taking place in 1970. This year’s pride theme was “reflect, empower, unite.”

This year’s “pride month” saw a high number of protests and riots against various pride demonstrations carried out almost exclusively by anti-Israel agitators, who have been protesting and rioting across the country ever since the October 7th terrorist attacks against Israel by Hamas.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-was-missing-from-the-debate/

Even at their best, presidential debates are glorified dog-and-pony shows. Voters always say they want a serious policy debate, but such discussions involve technical information, statistical data, and complex explanations, all of which a majority of people find tedious. They much prefer emotion, clashing personalities, drama, humor, flubs, gaffes, and, as Donald Trump has shown since 2016, street-fighting elan.

Those limitations are good for entertainment and marketing, rather than informing voters, the default purpose of these verbal jousts, which reduces their political utility.

Last week’s debate illustrated this flaw, especially the insult battles between Trump and Biden. The moderators’ questions covered the issues that concern voters and regularly show up in polls, such as illegal border-crossings and inflation. But the dueling narratives mostly comprise attacks on each other, rather than presenting specific policies.

Trump, however, had the advantage in that bout despite his trademark hyperbole, given his first-term successes on both fronts, compared to Biden’s surreal lies, incoherence, and obviously addled condition, not to mention his sorry record of exacerbating those very problems.

But especially on the economy, we didn’t hear the more detailed information needed in order to break through the partisan rancor and spin, and get closer to the facts. For example, a few days before the debate, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial about the Democrat’s “Tax Armageddon” scheme for undoing Trump’s 2017 tax reforms: “Democrats are saying out loud that they plan to use the scheduled expiration of the 2017 tax cuts at the end of 2025 to insist on the largest tax increase in history.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/07/02/did-the-supreme-court-just-throw-biden-a-lifeline-joe-thinks-so/

In his remarks following the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, President Joe Biden pretended to be mortified by it. But there’s a reason Biden seemed so energetic and focused Monday night. The Court might just have done him and his reelection campaign a huge favor. At least, Biden thinks so.

In his very brief remarks, Biden called the ruling a “dangerous precedent.” He said it “continues to the Court’s attack on a wide range of long-established legal principles.” He quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s inflammatory opinion which said “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”  I concur, Biden said.

His performance was a striking contrast from last Thursday’s disaster.

But Biden was actually celebrating this decision because it gave his campaign a shot in the arm it desperately needed. He now has a whole new way to scare voters about Trump.

Biden argued that because the president will “no longer be constrained by the law,” the only limits on executive actions “will be self-imposed by the president alone.”   

Biden, in an obvious attempt to equate himself with George Washington, said it was a display of the first president’s character that he believed presidential power was not absolute and that power resides with the people.

“Now, over 200 years later, today’s Supreme Court decision, once again will depend on the character of the men and women who hold that presidency that are going to define the limits of the power of the  presidency because the law will no longer do it.”

Do you get where he’s going with this?