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Nevilledog
Nevilledog's Journal
Nevilledog's Journal
September 2, 2024
On Friday, former President Donald Trump appeared at a Moms for Liberty conference in Washington, D.C. where he expressed extremist views on trans people that are wildly divorced from reality. He made numerous remarks that highlight both his record as an anti-trans figurehead and the relationship he has to those orchestrating Project 2025. The conference, featuring discussions between Trump and Moms for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice, included 20 minutes of discussion relating to transgender issues.
It was in this section that Trump made one of the most outlandish claims on transgender issues in recent history: “But uh, the transgender thing is an incredible thing… your kid goes to school & comes home a few days later with an operation the school decides what’s going to happen with your child & you many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say ‘what the hell happened, who did this to me?’”
This statement has no basis in reality—no school in the United States, or anywhere in the world, has authorized gender-affirming surgery on a child without the parent’s consent.
The discussion turned to transgender issues when Tiffany Justice suddenly brought up the topic, initially referencing Elon Musk’s recent interview with Jordan Peterson, in which Musk ranted about the “woke mind virus” supposedly affecting his trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson. Justice expressed agreement with Musk’s remarks. Wilson, however, provided detailed rebuttals on her Threads account, pointing out how Musk’s statements were inaccurate and often ignored the truth. No reference was made to her careful rebuttalsthe
*snip*
Trump Falsely Claims Schools Are Giving Surgeries To Kids To Change Their Gender
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/trump-falsely-claims-schools-areOn Friday, former President Donald Trump appeared at a Moms for Liberty conference in Washington, D.C. where he expressed extremist views on trans people that are wildly divorced from reality. He made numerous remarks that highlight both his record as an anti-trans figurehead and the relationship he has to those orchestrating Project 2025. The conference, featuring discussions between Trump and Moms for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice, included 20 minutes of discussion relating to transgender issues.
It was in this section that Trump made one of the most outlandish claims on transgender issues in recent history: “But uh, the transgender thing is an incredible thing… your kid goes to school & comes home a few days later with an operation the school decides what’s going to happen with your child & you many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say ‘what the hell happened, who did this to me?’”
This statement has no basis in reality—no school in the United States, or anywhere in the world, has authorized gender-affirming surgery on a child without the parent’s consent.
The discussion turned to transgender issues when Tiffany Justice suddenly brought up the topic, initially referencing Elon Musk’s recent interview with Jordan Peterson, in which Musk ranted about the “woke mind virus” supposedly affecting his trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson. Justice expressed agreement with Musk’s remarks. Wilson, however, provided detailed rebuttals on her Threads account, pointing out how Musk’s statements were inaccurate and often ignored the truth. No reference was made to her careful rebuttalsthe
*snip*
August 8, 2024
*snip*
New Media Matters research into Project 2025’s extremist goals
Proposals in the Mandate for Leadership would severely inhibit the federal government’s protections for reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, labor and civil rights, and immigrants, as well as its climate change efforts. They would allow Trump to weaponize the justice system as his own personal retribution machine, gut the American system of checks and balances and purge the federal bureaucracy of experienced civil servants who haven’t pledged fealty to Trump. On their own platforms, Project 2025 partners frequently speak in even more draconian terms.
Here’s a sampling of the agenda that the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 are pushing to implement on day one of a second Trump administration:
*snip*
The definitive guide to Project 2025 (Media Matters)
https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/definitive-guide-project-2025*snip*
New Media Matters research into Project 2025’s extremist goals
Proposals in the Mandate for Leadership would severely inhibit the federal government’s protections for reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, labor and civil rights, and immigrants, as well as its climate change efforts. They would allow Trump to weaponize the justice system as his own personal retribution machine, gut the American system of checks and balances and purge the federal bureaucracy of experienced civil servants who haven’t pledged fealty to Trump. On their own platforms, Project 2025 partners frequently speak in even more draconian terms.
Here’s a sampling of the agenda that the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 are pushing to implement on day one of a second Trump administration:
* Reimplementing “Schedule F,” a Trump-era executive order that removes civil service protection for career bureaucrats so they can be fired and replaced with far-right loyalists.
* Adopting an extreme anti-choice agenda that would restrict legal abortion drugs and emergency contraception, and that could also impact fertility-related health care like IVF and surrogacy services.
* Undermining checks and balances in the federal government and consolidating the president’s power to weaponize the Department of Justice and law enforcement against his political enemies.
* Institutionalizing the right-wing movement’s war on LGBTQ communities by promoting conversion therapy and stripping queer people of federal protections.
* Eviscerating labor rights, including union negotiating rights and protections for overtime pay.
Allowing high-income earners to more easily cheat the IRS.
* Rejecting climate science in favor of Big Oil’s preferred policies by gutting federal agencies that protect the environment and dismantling regulations allowing polluting industries to extract even more oil and gas from federal lands with less protections.
* Potentially conducting mass deportations of millions of immigrants or those suspected to be immigrants, in part by revoking all Temporary Protected Status designations, which would put more than 863,000 people at risk.
* Overhauling the American education system by eliminating the Department of Education and making student loans more expensive.
* Purging the federal government of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
* Expelling transgender service members from the military and eliminating DEI initiatives from the military to “restore standards of lethality and excellence.”
*snip*
August 8, 2024
Introduction
In the coming weeks or months, a federal district court will have the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the scope of a former president’s immunity from criminal liability. The decision has been accurately described, by Akhil Amar and others, as one of the worst in the Court’s history because of the leeway it gives a president to commit crimes and its expansion of exclusive executive authority. However, the Court’s ruling shields only some official presidential conduct from criminal prosecution. Unofficial acts are not covered by immunity, and not all official acts are absolutely immune. A key question in the January 6 case becomes which of the specific acts alleged in the indictment are immune under the Court’s new test and which aren’t. The Court gave important “guidance” (its term), but largely left that question for the trial court to answer in the first instance. The trial court’s process for answering that question will involve an evidentiary inquiry, and perhaps hearings, to assess alleged facts relevant to the legal test.
On our view, the Court’s decision leaves the core of the case against Trump intact. A fair application of the Court’s new immunity test to the indictment’s allegations yields a narrowed but still plainly viable prosecution. As we write, the trial court and the parties are preparing to grapple with this issue. On Saturday, August 3, Judge Tanya Chutkan—the trial judge presiding over the case—issued an order requesting the parties to propose a schedule for the remaining pretrial proceedings. The order also scheduled a status conference for August 16, at which the court may decide the path forward. The application of the immunity test will likely be a central part of that process.
In this essay, we discuss how the trial court should approach applying the Supreme Court’s ruling. We believe that as soon as possible following the status conference, Judge Chutkan should schedule an evidentiary hearing—a “mini-trial,” in which documents and witnesses are presented—to determine the scope of the immunity in this case. Our examination of the new immunity rule and the specific allegations against Trump indicate that Smith’s case remains strong and should survive that inquiry with key elements remaining unscathed.
Our analysis is supplemented by an annotated version of Smith’s indictment, which color-codes the allegations according to the degree to which they are now potentially protected by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Green are the least affected and red are the most affected, with the full coding approach outlined below in Section III of this essay.
*snip*
After Immunity: The Path Forward for the January 6th Case (Just Security)
https://www.justsecurity.org/98457/immunity-january-6th-chutkan/Introduction
In the coming weeks or months, a federal district court will have the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the scope of a former president’s immunity from criminal liability. The decision has been accurately described, by Akhil Amar and others, as one of the worst in the Court’s history because of the leeway it gives a president to commit crimes and its expansion of exclusive executive authority. However, the Court’s ruling shields only some official presidential conduct from criminal prosecution. Unofficial acts are not covered by immunity, and not all official acts are absolutely immune. A key question in the January 6 case becomes which of the specific acts alleged in the indictment are immune under the Court’s new test and which aren’t. The Court gave important “guidance” (its term), but largely left that question for the trial court to answer in the first instance. The trial court’s process for answering that question will involve an evidentiary inquiry, and perhaps hearings, to assess alleged facts relevant to the legal test.
On our view, the Court’s decision leaves the core of the case against Trump intact. A fair application of the Court’s new immunity test to the indictment’s allegations yields a narrowed but still plainly viable prosecution. As we write, the trial court and the parties are preparing to grapple with this issue. On Saturday, August 3, Judge Tanya Chutkan—the trial judge presiding over the case—issued an order requesting the parties to propose a schedule for the remaining pretrial proceedings. The order also scheduled a status conference for August 16, at which the court may decide the path forward. The application of the immunity test will likely be a central part of that process.
In this essay, we discuss how the trial court should approach applying the Supreme Court’s ruling. We believe that as soon as possible following the status conference, Judge Chutkan should schedule an evidentiary hearing—a “mini-trial,” in which documents and witnesses are presented—to determine the scope of the immunity in this case. Our examination of the new immunity rule and the specific allegations against Trump indicate that Smith’s case remains strong and should survive that inquiry with key elements remaining unscathed.
Our analysis is supplemented by an annotated version of Smith’s indictment, which color-codes the allegations according to the degree to which they are now potentially protected by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. Green are the least affected and red are the most affected, with the full coding approach outlined below in Section III of this essay.
*snip*
August 5, 2024
The Americans have done it again: they’ve ruined the language.1
Alright, alright, not all Americans are responsible this time.2 Instead, it’s the ways that modern Republicans have savaged political English, slapping words with exact, precise definitions onto a loose agglomeration of concepts wily-nily until they’re unrecognizable distortions, sometimes even inversions. This isn’t like calling a crow a raven. Instead, it’s more like if you were to point at an elephant and call it a chihuahua. These are not understandable near misses.
This is a problem because a shared political reality requires a shared political language to describe concepts. Thinkers from Aristotle to Hannah Arendt and George Orwell understood that words matter and that the lexicon we use to describe our social world directly influences our perceptions of it.
Orwell, who is quoted endlessly for 1984, wrote a somewhat less famous essay called “Politics and the English Language,” in which he decried how linguistic contortions could excuse even the most egregious abuses. “Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.”
In short, Orwell explains that “political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” More recently, the violent attack on January 6th has been described by one Republican as “a normal tourist visit.” Orwell’s warning is apt: corruptions of language can lead to corrupted minds, where doublethink becomes commonplace.
*snip*
The MAGA Abuse of the English Language
https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/maga-corruptions-of-the-english-languageThe Americans have done it again: they’ve ruined the language.1
Alright, alright, not all Americans are responsible this time.2 Instead, it’s the ways that modern Republicans have savaged political English, slapping words with exact, precise definitions onto a loose agglomeration of concepts wily-nily until they’re unrecognizable distortions, sometimes even inversions. This isn’t like calling a crow a raven. Instead, it’s more like if you were to point at an elephant and call it a chihuahua. These are not understandable near misses.
This is a problem because a shared political reality requires a shared political language to describe concepts. Thinkers from Aristotle to Hannah Arendt and George Orwell understood that words matter and that the lexicon we use to describe our social world directly influences our perceptions of it.
Orwell, who is quoted endlessly for 1984, wrote a somewhat less famous essay called “Politics and the English Language,” in which he decried how linguistic contortions could excuse even the most egregious abuses. “Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.”
In short, Orwell explains that “political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” More recently, the violent attack on January 6th has been described by one Republican as “a normal tourist visit.” Orwell’s warning is apt: corruptions of language can lead to corrupted minds, where doublethink becomes commonplace.
*snip*
August 1, 2024
It is late afternoon on Inauguration Day 2025. Protesters fill the downtowns of American cities, enraging the newly sworn president. Send in the military, he demands. Invoke the Insurrection Act. Federalize the National Guard in all 50 states. Tell the troops to use all the force they need to clear the streets.
So began one of five tabletop exercises I co-led in May and June, along with former Defense Department official Rosa Brooks and historian Nils Gilman. We based the starting scenarios on the election of former president Donald Trump to a second term, and we asked participants playing the president, all of them Republicans or former Republicans, to base their gameplay on Trump’s publicly stated promises.
As a nonpartisan think tank, my employer, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes. Nor do we predict who will win in November. Some of my colleagues are doing scenario planning for a Democratic victory, too.
The role-playing exercises were designed to test how well checks and balances, broadly understood, might restrain a president from abusing his power. The results were not encouraging: The games demonstrated repeatedly that an authoritarian in control of the executive branch, with little concern for legal limits, holds a structural advantage over any lawful effort to restrain him.
*snip*
How to Harden Our Defenses Against an Authoritarian President
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-harden-our-defenses-against-authoritarian-presidentIt is late afternoon on Inauguration Day 2025. Protesters fill the downtowns of American cities, enraging the newly sworn president. Send in the military, he demands. Invoke the Insurrection Act. Federalize the National Guard in all 50 states. Tell the troops to use all the force they need to clear the streets.
So began one of five tabletop exercises I co-led in May and June, along with former Defense Department official Rosa Brooks and historian Nils Gilman. We based the starting scenarios on the election of former president Donald Trump to a second term, and we asked participants playing the president, all of them Republicans or former Republicans, to base their gameplay on Trump’s publicly stated promises.
As a nonpartisan think tank, my employer, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes. Nor do we predict who will win in November. Some of my colleagues are doing scenario planning for a Democratic victory, too.
The role-playing exercises were designed to test how well checks and balances, broadly understood, might restrain a president from abusing his power. The results were not encouraging: The games demonstrated repeatedly that an authoritarian in control of the executive branch, with little concern for legal limits, holds a structural advantage over any lawful effort to restrain him.
*snip*
July 29, 2024
No paywall link
https://archive.li/e5sSw
IT WAS THE summer of 2016 when a manager at the Central Intelligence Agency pulled him into a conference room, sat him down at a table, and asked him to read the intelligence they had brought.
Van Landingham wasn’t naive about what the Kremlin was capable of. His work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA had given him a front row seat to the destruction that Russia’s spy services had wrought in places like Syria and Ukraine.
But this wasn’t about what Russia was doing in some far away country.
Inside a room wrapped in a vault in the bowels of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, he read the intelligence showing that Moscow was trying to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I think for the first time in my professional life, I felt physically ill reading something,” he says.
That was only the beginning of a long, strange journey that would place van Landingham right at the center of the 2016 campaign’s biggest story. Months later, the Agency assigned him the job of writing the first draft of the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment about Russian election meddling that concluded what many had suspected: Vladimir Putin did it. And he did it to help Donald Trump.
*snip*
He Confirmed Russia Meddled in 2016 to Help Trump. Now, He's Speaking Out
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/cia-ica-report-author-trump-russia-1235067814/No paywall link
https://archive.li/e5sSw
IT WAS THE summer of 2016 when a manager at the Central Intelligence Agency pulled him into a conference room, sat him down at a table, and asked him to read the intelligence they had brought.
Van Landingham wasn’t naive about what the Kremlin was capable of. His work as an intelligence analyst for the CIA had given him a front row seat to the destruction that Russia’s spy services had wrought in places like Syria and Ukraine.
But this wasn’t about what Russia was doing in some far away country.
Inside a room wrapped in a vault in the bowels of the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, he read the intelligence showing that Moscow was trying to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I think for the first time in my professional life, I felt physically ill reading something,” he says.
That was only the beginning of a long, strange journey that would place van Landingham right at the center of the 2016 campaign’s biggest story. Months later, the Agency assigned him the job of writing the first draft of the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment about Russian election meddling that concluded what many had suspected: Vladimir Putin did it. And he did it to help Donald Trump.
*snip*
July 23, 2024
Trigger warning for discussion of traumatic medical procedures
I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.
Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child.
So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?
For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died.
*snip*
Jessica Valenti - This is How They Kill Us: The rise of post-Roe c-sections
https://jessica.substack.com/p/this-is-how-they-kill-usTrigger warning for discussion of traumatic medical procedures
I remember the feeling of hands inside me. Pulling, tugging, moving things aside. My emergency c-section wasn’t painful, but that feeling of being invaded was somehow worse than physical hurt. For years, the thought of the surgery would send me into a PTSD panic, my knees literally buckling and vomit coming up the back of my throat. In my memory, my arms are tied down while I’m being cut—but I know that’s not true. It’s just my brain’s way of making the powerlessness of the moment seem tangible.
Because I was so early in my pregnancy, just 28 weeks along, doctors had to cut me both horizontally and vertically, making it life-threatening for me to have a vaginal birth in the future and increasing my risk for uterine rupture. I didn’t know it then, but I would never have another child.
So when I see anti-abortion groups blithely suggesting that women with life-threatening pregnancies should be forced into c-sections rather than easier, safer, and less traumatic abortions—it feels personal. Because I chose my medical nightmare; it was necessary to save both my life and my daughter’s. I can’t imagine the horror of going through such a thing unnecessarily, or at 16 weeks pregnant instead of 28. What if my tied-down arms weren’t a post-traumatic illusion, but a legal reality?
For nearly a year, I’ve been tracking this growing strategy: Some of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations in the country are using carefully-worded legislation and seemingly-credible clinical recommendations to codify medical atrocities—pushing doctors to force pregnant women into unnecessary labor and c-sections, even before fetal viability and sometimes even when a fetus has died.
*snip*
July 22, 2024
On Sunday at 1:46 PM Eastern Time, President Joe Biden announced he would end his campaign for reelection. Seconds later, the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris began.
Harris is not yet the nominee. But she has declared her intention to seek the nomination and received an endorsement from Biden. Prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and many others quickly threw their support behind Harris. She is the strong favorite to secure the nomination.
Some of the attacks on Harris were predictable. For example, shortly after Biden's announcement, the Trump campaign blamed Harris for a "migrant crime wave" over the last three years. This was also the centerpiece of Trump's campaign against Biden, but the "migrant crime wave" does not exist. Violent crime has decreased every year since Biden took office — and is down sharply again in 2024. (The last time violent crime increased was 2020, when Trump was president.) Further, a study of the 14 Texas counties along the border with Mexico by crime analyst Jeff Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."
Other attacks include those that seem to pop up any time a woman seeks a position of power. The RNC Research X account, which attacks Trump's opponents on behalf of his campaign and the Republican National Committee, posted a video attacking Harris for being "annoying." The post features a video of Harris saying a short phrase — "what can be, unburdened by what has been" — in various settings for four minutes. This is only a slight variation of the common complaint that ambitious women are "shrill."
*snip*
Judd Legum: A guide to the coming attacks on Kamala Harris
https://popular.info/p/a-guide-to-the-coming-attacks-onOn Sunday at 1:46 PM Eastern Time, President Joe Biden announced he would end his campaign for reelection. Seconds later, the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris began.
Harris is not yet the nominee. But she has declared her intention to seek the nomination and received an endorsement from Biden. Prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and many others quickly threw their support behind Harris. She is the strong favorite to secure the nomination.
Some of the attacks on Harris were predictable. For example, shortly after Biden's announcement, the Trump campaign blamed Harris for a "migrant crime wave" over the last three years. This was also the centerpiece of Trump's campaign against Biden, but the "migrant crime wave" does not exist. Violent crime has decreased every year since Biden took office — and is down sharply again in 2024. (The last time violent crime increased was 2020, when Trump was president.) Further, a study of the 14 Texas counties along the border with Mexico by crime analyst Jeff Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."
Other attacks include those that seem to pop up any time a woman seeks a position of power. The RNC Research X account, which attacks Trump's opponents on behalf of his campaign and the Republican National Committee, posted a video attacking Harris for being "annoying." The post features a video of Harris saying a short phrase — "what can be, unburdened by what has been" — in various settings for four minutes. This is only a slight variation of the common complaint that ambitious women are "shrill."
*snip*
July 2, 2024
On Monday, six members of the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump — and every future president — broad criminal immunity. The court found that, as president, Trump was free to use his "official" powers to commit crimes. Considering the President of the United States is the most powerful position in the world, this is a breathtaking pronouncement.
Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor details the implications:
The Supreme Court invented this new kind of presidential immunity 235 years after the Constitution was ratified. And it lacks any grounding in the Constitution's text. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, cites the need for the president to take "bold and unhesitating action" without "undue caution."
Justice Sotomayor explains that the Constitution contains provisions granting various forms of criminal immunity to federal officials. But the President of the United States was not included:
*snip*
Judd Legum: A five-alarm fire for democracy
https://popular.info/p/a-five-alarm-fire-for-democracyOn Monday, six members of the Supreme Court granted Donald Trump — and every future president — broad criminal immunity. The court found that, as president, Trump was free to use his "official" powers to commit crimes. Considering the President of the United States is the most powerful position in the world, this is a breathtaking pronouncement.
Writing in dissent, Justice Sotomayor details the implications:
When [the President of the United States] 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.
The Supreme Court invented this new kind of presidential immunity 235 years after the Constitution was ratified. And it lacks any grounding in the Constitution's text. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, cites the need for the president to take "bold and unhesitating action" without "undue caution."
Justice Sotomayor explains that the Constitution contains provisions granting various forms of criminal immunity to federal officials. But the President of the United States was not included:
The Framers clearly knew how to provide for immunity from prosecution. They did provide a narrow immunity for legislators in the Speech or Debate Clause. See Art. I, §6, cl. 1 (“Senators and Representatives . . . shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place”). They did not extend the same or similar immunity to Presidents.
*snip*
June 28, 2024
No paywall link
https://archive.li/dce1M
In the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, the Supreme Court today overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 case that instructed the judiciary to defer to the president and the president’s experts in executive agencies when determining how best to enforce laws passed by Congress. In so doing, the court gave itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state and its regulatory agencies.
Now, if you’re not a lawyer, that probably sounds bad, but mainly in a technical sense. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission issue influential but deeply complicated rules, so it makes sense that somebody should have final authority over whether and how to enforce those rules. Since we have already made the disastrous decision to allow the Supreme Court to tell us who gets to be president and what women can be forced to do with their bodies, it might not sound like that big of a leap to also let the court decide how much lead can leak into our drinking water or which predators are allowed to sell mortgages.
The thing is: the US Constitution, flawed though it is, has already answered the question of who gets to decide how to enforce our laws. The Constitution says, quite clearly, that Congress passes laws and the President enforces them. The Supreme Court, constitutionally speaking, has no role in determining whether Congress was right to pass the law, or if the executive branch is right to enforce it, or how presidents should use the authority granted to them by Congress. So, for instance, if Congress passes a Clean Air Act (which it did in in 1963) and the president creates an executive agency to enforce it (which President Richard Nixon did in 1970), then it’s really not up to the Supreme Court to say “well, actually, ‘clean air’ doesn’t mean what the EPA thinks it means.”
For an unelected panel of judges to come in, above the agencies, and tell them how the president is allowed to enforce laws, is a perversion of the constitutional order and separation of powers—and a repudiation of democracy itself.
But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
*snip*
Elie Mystal: We Just Witnessed the Biggest Supreme Court Power Grab Since 1803
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/chevron-deference-supreme-court-power-grab/No paywall link
https://archive.li/dce1M
In the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, the Supreme Court today overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 case that instructed the judiciary to defer to the president and the president’s experts in executive agencies when determining how best to enforce laws passed by Congress. In so doing, the court gave itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state and its regulatory agencies.
Now, if you’re not a lawyer, that probably sounds bad, but mainly in a technical sense. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission issue influential but deeply complicated rules, so it makes sense that somebody should have final authority over whether and how to enforce those rules. Since we have already made the disastrous decision to allow the Supreme Court to tell us who gets to be president and what women can be forced to do with their bodies, it might not sound like that big of a leap to also let the court decide how much lead can leak into our drinking water or which predators are allowed to sell mortgages.
The thing is: the US Constitution, flawed though it is, has already answered the question of who gets to decide how to enforce our laws. The Constitution says, quite clearly, that Congress passes laws and the President enforces them. The Supreme Court, constitutionally speaking, has no role in determining whether Congress was right to pass the law, or if the executive branch is right to enforce it, or how presidents should use the authority granted to them by Congress. So, for instance, if Congress passes a Clean Air Act (which it did in in 1963) and the president creates an executive agency to enforce it (which President Richard Nixon did in 1970), then it’s really not up to the Supreme Court to say “well, actually, ‘clean air’ doesn’t mean what the EPA thinks it means.”
For an unelected panel of judges to come in, above the agencies, and tell them how the president is allowed to enforce laws, is a perversion of the constitutional order and separation of powers—and a repudiation of democracy itself.
But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
*snip*
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