Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing vacation. I took a couple weeks off from NextDraft only to return to find American democracy on the brink. At this point, it's no surprise that the Supreme Court was going to use all the time possible to delay a decision (and hence, the case against Trump) in the presidential immunity case. But it is surprising, even by this Court's standards, how far the majority was willing to go toward turning our president into a king. Today the Court issued something of a split decision. Split in the sense that it offered a hell of a lot of immunity but not total immunity. From Chief Justice John Roberts: "At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official." And split in the sense we now have the era of American democracy before this decision and the era that now begins after it. On a practical level, this decision sends things back to the DC court for a series of arguments on which Trump actions were official and which weren't. That will clearly delay things well beyond the November election. For the deeper level, I'll leave it to the dissenting opinions from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor: "The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he 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 dissenting coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today." Jackson: "The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm. I fear that they are wrong. But, for all oursakes, I hope that they are right. In the meantime, because the risks (and power) the Court has now assumed are intolerable, unwarranted, and plainly antithetical to bedrock constitutional norms, I dissent." My take: While the immunity case started as an almost ridiculous reach by Trump to avoid being held to account for his horrifically anti American actions, this decision has turned it into something even larger. Indeed, I'd advise you to focus less on what the SCOTUS immunity ruling means for the crimes of the last Trump administration and more on what it could mean for the crimes of a possible next one. 2The Clash"If I go, there will be trouble. And if I stay, it will be double. So come on and let me know, should I stay, or should I go?" —The Clash 3Align in the SandTo add a little more stress to America's inside threat, let's consider the threat building on the outside. Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The World Is Realigning. "Like a lightning strike illuminating a dim landscape, the twin invasions of Israel and Ukraine have brought a sudden recognition: What appeared to be, until now, disparate and disorganized challenges to the United States and its allies is actually something broader, more integrated, more aggressive, and more dangerous. Over the past several years, the world has hardened into two competing blocs. One is an alliance of liberal-minded, Western-oriented countries that includes NATO as well as U.S. allies in Asia and Oceania, with the general if inconsistent cooperation of some non-liberal countries such as Saudi Arabia and Vietnam: a Liberal Alliance, for short. The other bloc is led by the authoritarian dyad of Russia and Iran, but it extends to anti-American states such as North Korea, militias such as Hezbollah, terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad, and paramilitaries such as the Wagner Group: an Axis of Resistance, as some of its members have accurately dubbed it." 4In the BuffToday's news probably has you feeling a little nostalgic for the mornings when you could open your browser without a feeling of dread. We can't bring back the old news, but this seems like a good day to bring back the old internet. Aside from the buffering, it was glorious. FastCo: What the internet looked like in 1994, according to 15 webpages born that year. (As a bonus, this look back makes '94 seem young.) 5Extra, ExtraOzempic Babies: "Some women report that they got pregnant while taking the birth-control pill. Others were previously diagnosed as infertile, but say that they conceived after taking a course of the drugs." Does Ozempic have yet another impact? Does Ozempic boost fertility? What the science says. 6Bottom of the News"Germany’s first School Toilet Summit has met, seeking initiatives across the EU’s biggest country to make facilities less off-putting for children driven to holding it in all day rather than visiting the loos that up to half of pupils have said they try to avoid." German summit aims to flush away bad school toilet experiences.
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