“Dead Skunk in The Middle of The Road” – Page 23

Opinion | The Supreme Court wrote an immunity test Trump can’t help but pass

MSNBC – Opinion

The Supreme Court wrote an immunity test Trump can’t help but pass

Hayes Brown – July 2, 2024

It’s hard to see how the Supreme Court’s ruling on whether former President Donald Trump enjoys immunity from prosecution could be much worse. It’s true that the opinion in Trump v. United States doesn’t grant him the absolute immunity that he’d claimed. Instead, Chief Justice John Roberts authored a majority opinion as close as possible to finding that absolute immunity without making a complete mockery of the findings of the lower courts. In the end, the chief justice and his GOP-appointed colleagues determined that presidents are immune for “official acts” but may still be prosecuted for “unofficial acts” once they’ve left office.

With this decision, the six conservative justices left up in the air exactly what parts of the federal indictment against Trump are still constitutional. The opinion accordingly pats itself on the back for not making the determination straight away, leaving that to the lower courts to determine based on a test of the Supreme Court’s devising. But the caveats and examples that the court provides in its opinion makes it obvious that anything determined to be outside the shield it has erected around Trump will be at best a temporary setback for the former president.

In this brave new world, a president’s actions can be divided into three categories. The first are those official acts that are “conclusive and preclusive” — authorized through a power granted solely to the president under the Constitution. Such acts are now totally protected from prosecution. All other official acts, including presidential communications, are granted “presumptive immunity.” In those cases, prosecutors can still argue that executive privilege doesn’t apply but it’s up to a judge to make that call. Finally, “unofficial acts,” or those taken beyond the scope of office, don’t fall under the aegis of this newfound immunity — but exactly what counts is left undefined.

In setting this new precedent, Roberts draws heavily on the 1982 decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, which determined that the president enjoys immunity from civil cases even for acts that extend to the “outer perimeter” of their role. The same presumed immunity for those acts now applies to criminal cases, “so long as they are ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.’” With that very unhelpful guidance, Roberts has ordered the lower courts to do the work now of figuring out what exactly that entails, including whether the Trump-led pressure campaign against former Vice President Mike Pence fits the bill.

Accordingly, this ruling has wiped away entirely the assertion in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment that Trump leaned on the Justice Department to pursue false election fraud cases to bolster his efforts to overturn the election. More damaging, Smith is now blocked from even using those supposedly “official acts” as evidence to prove criminality for unofficial acts, whichever those wind up being. The overall effect is to tie prosecutors’ hands, cutting them off from one of the key factors in determining whether to bring charges against a person.

Importantly, Roberts also writes that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” This new dictum applies even in instances of clear motive to act in their own personal interest, rather the national interest, putting such motivations beyond the reach of prosecutors. This determination also all but bars lower court judges from applying common sense to charges involving a president, as Monday’s ruling also blocks judges from deeming a president’s action unofficial “merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.”

To top it all off, Roberts sanctimoniously forgoes driving the dagger into the heart of this case. After determining that criminal immunity exists for official presidential actions, he then writes that “the current stage of the proceedings in this case does not require us to decide whether this immunity is presumptive or absolute” for each of those given actions. No, those issues must be left for the future because, he writes, a single case “in more than ‘two centuries does not afford enough experience’ to definitively and comprehensively determine the President’s scope of immunity from criminal prosecution.”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case in question, is now tasked with adjudicating which of Trump’s actions are still subject to prosecution. What is left only implicit in the opinion, though, is that those decisions are subject to appeal by Trump or the prosecutors (though much more likely the former). So, too, are the decisions that the appeals court eventually makes, putting the final call right back where it started: in the hands of Roberts and his fellow conservatives.

In sum, this decision is a Roberts special, projecting neutral impartiality while thoroughly skewed toward a predetermined outcome. The supposed tests that are meant to give the veneer of wide applicability beyond Trump should instead be seen in the same light as the decision to allow him onto the ballot despite the 14th Amendment’s language preventing it: a fig leaf over a standard that applies to only one man.

Five SCOTUS Justices’ Comments on Prez Immunity Come Back to Haunt Them

Daily Beast

Five SCOTUS Justices’ Comments on Prez Immunity Come Back to Haunt Them

Owen Lavine – July 2, 2024

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

Collective amnesia seems to have struck the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, especially around the question: Is the president above the law?

Five of the six conservative justices who ruled to give the president absolute immunity for “core” presidential duties seem to have made contradictory statements during their Senate confirmation hearings.

“No man is above the law,” Neil Gorsuch told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) during his confirmation hearing in 2017.

Gorsuch even doubled down, calling the court’s landmark 1952 decision in Youngstown v. Sawyer, which reigned in presidential authority, a “brilliant opinion.”

Similarly, Brett Kavanaugh told the Senate that “no one is above the law” during his 2018 confirmation hearing, according to CNN. Amy Coney Barrett concurred during her hearing, but like Kavanaugh, obfuscated on presidential pardons, according to The New York Times.

“That question may or may not arise, but that is one that calls for legal analysis of what the scope of the pardon power is,” Barrett told the Senate on the extent of the presidential pardon.

Kavanaugh told the Senate, “The question of self pardons is something I have never analyzed.”

In Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearing he told the senate that “no president, Democratic or Republican, no president is above the law, as neither are you, nor I, nor anyone in this room.”

Alito also praised the Youngstown ruling, adding that during Watergate it was “the responsibility of the judiciary to hold fast,” in forcing President Nixon to abide by subpoenas.

Chief Justice John Roberts concurred, citing Youngstown as binding the president to the law.

“Senator, I believe that no one is above the law under our system, and that includes the president,” he said in his 2005 confirmation hearing. “The president is fully bound by the law, the Constitution and statutes. Now, there often arise issues where there’s a conflict between the Legislature and the Executive over an exercise of Executive authority, asserted Executive authority. The framework for analyzing that is in the Youngstown Sheet and Tube case, the famous case coming out of President Truman’s seizure of the steel mills.”

Presidential pardons, Youngstown and presidential immunity were not discussed in Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing.

Justice’s dissent: ‘The president is now a king above the law’

BBC

Justice’s dissent: ‘The president is now a king above the law’

By Mike Wendling, BBC News – July 1, 2024

Three justices have issued a blistering dissent to the US Supreme Court opinion granting Donald Trump partial immunity from prosecution, warning that it will allow presidential power to be used “for evil ends”.

The 6-3 historic decision effectively strips out key parts of an indictment against the former president for allegedly conspiring to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Six conservative-leaning justices signed the majority opinion, but the three liberals dissented, expressing “fear for our democracy”.

President Joe Biden similarly warned of a “dangerous precedent”, while one legal expert said this was not simply a case of “fear-mongering”.

Leading the liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor outlined hypothetical situations where the concept of immunity could apply.

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” she wrote. “Immune.”

“Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Justice Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by the court’s two other liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.

Justice Jackson wrote in a separate dissent that the majority’s ruling “breaks new and dangerous ground” by “discarding” the nation’s long-held principle that no-one is above the law.

“That core principle has long prevented our Nation from devolving into despotism,” she said.

Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority had invented a notion of absolute immunity for a president performing “official acts”, even though it has at times been assumed that presidents could be prosecuted for things they did while in office.

She was visibly emotional as she spent more than 20 minutes reading out parts of her opinion on Monday.

She cited Richard Nixon getting pardoned by the president who succeeded him, Gerald Ford, for using his official powers to obstruct an investigation into the Watergate burglary – the scandal that eventually led to Mr Nixon’s resignation.

Those involved in the case were under the presumption that Mr Nixon did not have immunity and could be prosecuted after leaving office, Justice Sotomayor wrote.

Her opinion went much further back in history as well. She quoted US Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, who wrote that former presidents would be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law”.

But the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, argued that the dissenters “strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today”.

He wrote that the liberal justices were “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals” and dismissed their legal reasoning as weak.

Normally, court dissents include the word “respectfully” but Ms Sotomayor signed off hers by writing: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

And Ms Sotomayor’s dissent was echoed by President Biden’s campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, in a call with reporters.

“Immune, immune, immune. They just handed Donald Trump keys to a dictatorship,” Mr Fulks said.

Legal experts indicated that the scenarios laid out by the justices, as stark as they might seem, are open to further interpretation, particularly by lower courts.

Jeffrey Cohen, an associate professor at Boston College Law School, told the BBC that the opinion lacks clarity as to what counts as an official act.

“There’s language in there that suggests that official acts could bleed into unofficial acts really easily and render things presumptively immune,” he said. “It’s a problem that the court has left us all with this sinking feeling that they’re presuming almost everything is immune.”

Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said that on significant government procedure cases such as this one, the Supreme Court has usually come to a unanimous verdict, but failed to do so this time.

The decision, she said, “strongly places the thumb on the scale in favour of immunity.”

“I don’t think the dissent is being fear-mongering. At the minimum, it is unclear how a prosecution could proceed on several of the theories laid out in the majority opinion.”

Julie Novkov, the dean of Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, said she was surprised at the broad definition of official acts.

But she noted that the decision raises complicated factual questions.

“I could imagine scenarios were we would have to get into this really careful analysis,” she added.

With reporting by Bernd Debusmann Jr at the Supreme Court and Rachel Looker in Washington

Sotomayor’s dissent: A president should not be a ‘king above the law’

Associated Press

Sotomayor’s dissent: A president should not be a ‘king above the law’

By Lindsay Whitehurst – July 1, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor attends a panel discussion, Feb. 23, 2024 in Washington. The Supreme Court allowed a president to become a “king above the law,” in the use of official power, Sotomayor said in a biting dissent Monday, July 1, that called the majority opinion on immunity for former President Donald Trump “utterly indefensible.” Joined by the court’s two other liberals, Sotomayor said the opinion would have disastrous consequences for the presidency and the nation’s democracy by creating a “law-free zone around the president.” (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. Bottom row, from left, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Supreme Court justices will take the bench Monday, July 1, 2024, to release their last few opinions of the term, including their most closely watched case: whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Read More

People protest outside the Supreme Court Monday, July 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

The Supreme Court building is seen on June 27, 2024, in Washington. Supreme Court justices will take the bench Monday, July 1, to release their last few opinions of the term, including their most closely watched case: whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

The Supreme Court opinion in former President Donald Trump’s immunity case is photographed Monday, July 1, 2024. In a historic ruling the justices said for the first time former presidents can be shielded from prosecution for at least some of what they do in the Oval Office. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Va., Friday, June 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an unsparing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Supreme Court allowed a president to become a “king above the law” in its ruling that limited the scope of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the election.

She called the decision, which likely ended the prospect of a trial for Trump before the November election, “utterly indefensible.”

“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote. She was joined by liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote another dissent referring to the ruling’s consequences as a “five alarm fire.”

Sotomayor read her dissent aloud in the courtroom, with a weighty delivery that underscored her criticism of the majority. She strongly pronounced each word, pausing at certain moments and gritting her teeth at others.

“Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing laws can now just break them,” Sotomayor said.

Chief Justice John Roberts accused the liberal justices of fearmongering in the 6-3 majority opinion. It found that presidents aren’t above the law but must be entitled to presumptive immunity to allow them to forcefully exercise the office’s far-reaching powers and avoid a vicious cycle of politically motivated prosecutions.

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While the opinion allows for the possibility of prosecutions for private acts, Sotomayor said it “deprives these prosecutions of any teeth” by excluding any evidence that related to official acts where the president is immune.

“This majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the presidency and for our democracy,” she said. She ended by saying, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

Trump, for his part, has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

The other justices looked on in silence and largely remained still as Sotomayor spoke, with Justice Samuel Alito shuffling through papers and appearing to study them.

Sotomayor pointed to historical evidence, from the founding fathers to Watergate, that presidents could potentially face prosecution. She took a jab at the conservative majority that has made the nation’s history a guiding principle on issues like guns and abortion. “Interesting, history matters, right?”

Then she looked at the courtroom audience and concluded, “Except here.”

The majority feared that the threat of potential prosecution could constrain a president or create a “cycle of factional strife,” that the founders intended to avoid.

Sotomayor, on the other handed, pointed out that presidents have access to extensive legal advice about their actions and that criminal cases typically face high bars in court to proceed.

“It is a far greater danger if the president feels empowered to violate federal criminal law, buoyed by the knowledge of future immunity,” she said. “I am deeply troubled by the idea … that our nation loses something valuable when the president is forced to operate within the confines of federal criminal law.”

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this story.

Lindsay Whitehurst is a national criminal justice reporter for The Associated Press, based in Washington, D.C. She covers the Justice Department, public safety and legal issues.

Liberal justices say Trump immunity decision ‘will have disastrous consequences’ for the U.S.

NBC News

Liberal justices say Trump immunity decision ‘will have disastrous consequences’ for the U.S.

The Supreme Court ruled that the former president has some immunity from prosecution in his federal election interference case, further delaying the trial.

Rebecca Shabad – July 1, 2024

Sonia Sotomayor speaks during a forum — Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority had invented an “unjustifiable” immunity that puts a president above the law. Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s liberal bloc issued blistering dissents Monday in the Trump immunity ruling, arguing that it “reshapes the institution of the presidency” and “makes a mockery” of the constitutional principle that no man is above the law.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading her dissent from the bench, said that “relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom … the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

She added that “because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.”

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on ideological lines that former President Donald Trump has immunity for some of his conduct as president but not unofficial acts in the federal election interference case. The court did not determine what constitutes an “official” act in this case, leaving that to the lower court.

The decision adds another hurdle and further delay to special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of the former president. Trump was indicted last year on charges he conspired to “overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election.”

Sotomayor said that the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, invents “an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.”

Their ruling, she went on, makes three moves that she said “completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability.” Sotomayor said the court creates absolute immunity for the president’s exercise of “core constitutional powers,” creates “expansive immunity for all ‘official acts,'” and “declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him.”

Sotomayor warned that the ruling “will have disastrous consequences for the Presidency and for our democracy” and that it sends the message: “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.”

She added, “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

In her own written dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that the majority’s ruling “breaks new and dangerous ground.”

“Departing from the traditional model of individual accountability, the majority has concocted something entirely different: a Presidential accountability model that creates immunity—an exemption from criminal law — applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government,” she wrote.

Jackson warned that under the majority’s “new Presidential accountability mode,” a hypothetical president “who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics…or one who indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup…has a fair shot at getting immunity.”

The chief justice dismissed the dissents, suggesting that his three liberal colleagues had misinterpreted the majority’s opinion and were engaging in “fear mongering.” Roberts argued that they “strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today.” He wrote that “like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity.”

He also appeared to scoff at Sotomayor for what she included in her dissent, saying that her “most compelling piece of evidence consists of excerpted statements of Charles Pinckney from an 1800 Senate debate.” He continued, “But those statements reflect only the now-discredited argument that any immunity not expressly mentioned in the Constitution must not exist.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a concurring opinion that she agreed with some of the majority opinion but not all of it. Notably, she said she agreed with Sotomayor that Trump’s immune conduct should still be allowed to be used as evidence in his trial.

“The Constitution does not require blinding juries to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable,” she said.

Soon after the court issued the ruling, Trump celebrated the decision on his Truth Social account, writing in all caps: “Big win for our Constitution and democracy. Proud to be an American!”

A Biden campaign adviser, on the other hand, said that the ruling doesn’t change what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election,” the adviser said. “Trump is already running for president as a convicted felon for the very same reason he sat idly by while the mob violently attacked the Capitol: he thinks he’s above the law and is willing to do anything to gain and hold onto power for himself.”

Kagan, liberal Supreme Court justices issue scathing dissent in Chevron ruling

The Hill

Kagan, liberal Supreme Court justices issue scathing dissent in Chevron ruling

Rachel Frazin – June 28, 2024

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan offered a scathing dissent Friday as her conservative colleagues transferred the power of federal agencies to the courts in a major decision overturning the Chevron deference.

In overruling that doctrine, Kagan argued that “the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar.”

Joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she wrote that the majority replaced a rule of “judicial humility” with one of “judicial hubris.”

“In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law,” Kagan wrote.

She added that the decision puts the courts at the center of a wide variety of policy issues, ranging from climate change to artificial intelligence.

“The Court has substituted its own judgment on workplace health for that of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; its own judgment on climate change for that of the Environmental Protection Agency; and its own judgment on student loans for that of the Department of Education,” Kagan wrote.

The 6-3 decision by the court upended a 40-year administrative law precedent in which federal agencies were given leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking.

Now, judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies — effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life.

“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his decision, which was joined by his five conservative colleagues.

Roberts argued that “courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace shows a political video she says should be all over TV immediately

Sarah K. Burris – June 28, 2024

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace

President Joe Biden took to a North Carolina stage with a fiery speech after a widely criticized debate.

It was the kind of vintage Biden that left MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace with demands of the campaign.

“That should be cut into an ad, and it should be the most money they’ve spent on TV TV so far. That should be running on every swing state digital and broadcast TV by tomorrow morning. That is a person who could win. And I think a lot of Democrats, to Cornell’s [Belcher] point, ran away from the president after coming to the conclusion that the person they saw last night.

Rev. Al Sharpton demanded the ad be put on immediately, not tomorrow.

“Yes!” Wallace exclaimed.

Sharpton went on to say that Biden’s story is a story of someone who is constantly knocked down and had to come back up.

“I got calls all night,” he said. “And I kept saying to them, do you have a short memory? Just a few years ago, to be exact, 3 1/2 years ago, I happened to be in Charleston, South Carolina, after the Democratic debate, having breakfast, and all of the candidates came. Joe Biden had just entered the race, and he was beaten in New Hampshire, and Jim Clyburn and him hooked up, and he took off. “

Wallace confessed that as a member of the media, she and others have “spent almost a grotesque amount of time trying to understand the bond of [Donald] Trump and his base. And compared to that very small amount of time to understand Joe Biden’s tie to his.”

What Rev. Sharpton was getting at, she said, is “something that has been missed by the, sort of, elite media, is that people see themselves in Joe Biden’s resilience and having to overcome to stutter. They see him in the agony of losing a child, a wife, and a daughter and in parenting someone who struggles with the disease of addiction.”

Now, I don’t think anyone can see themselves in him having to watch his own government prosecute his own son and then saying that he loves this country so much and the rule of law that he won’t pardon him; that’s almost next level. But there is something we miss about the voters and the Biden base’s ties to Biden that I think is really underscored by that clip from today’s speech.”

Team Trump Has a Ukraine Plan—and It’s a Total Nightmare

The New Republic – Opinion

Team Trump Has a Ukraine Plan—and It’s a Total Nightmare

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling – June 25, 2024

Donald Trump’s advisers have revealed their new plan for resolving the war between Russia and Ukraine—and it involves Ukraine’s immediate submission.

The plan effectively promises an increase in U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine so long as it shows up for peace talks with Russia, reported Reuters. And while that deal may not sound so bad, the writing between the lines isn’t so simple. Trump’s advisers envision that the peace talks—which Trump would facilitate should he win the November election—would also quietly include Ukraine ceding part of its territory that is currently occupied by Russian forces.

The concept was drawn up by retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, both former chiefs of staff on Trump’s National Security Council. Trump did not immediately sign on to “every word” of the plan, but Fleitz told Reuters that they were “pleased to get the feedback we did.”

The Kremlin told Reuters that Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to peace talks, but that any proposal by a possible future Trump administration would have to reflect the “reality on the ground.”

When pressed on the details of the plan, Fleitz explained that Ukraine would not formally need to relinquish its land to Russian forces. He did concede, however, that Ukraine was unlikely to regain control of all of its territory in the near future.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that ending the war on the borders of its current front lines—where Russia has gained a foothold in the southeast portion of Ukraine—would be “strange,” pointing to the fact that Russia had violated international law by invading it in the first place.

“Ukraine has an absolutely clear understanding and it is spelled out in the peace formula proposed by President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy, it is clearly stated there—peace can only be fair and peace can only be based on international law,” Podolyak told Reuters.

The plan’s promise to send more military aid to Ukraine only if it admits defeat and ends the war seems a bit counterintuitive—and disingenuous, considering that Trump and his advisers have done practically everything within their power to undermine sending more military aid to the embattled nation since the beginning of the year. And the plan’s obvious benefit to Russia also raises further concerns over Trump’s notoriously cushy—and sometimes subservient—relationship with Putin.

Why Republicans Are Talking About Biden’s ‘Dictatorship’

The New York Times – Opinion

Why Republicans Are Talking About Biden’s ‘Dictatorship’

Jamelle Bouie – June 25, 2024

The dome of the Capitol at night, shrouded in clouds. — Credit…Will Matsuda for The New York Times

The United States under President Biden is a “dictatorship,” according to Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota.

“Under Joe Biden,“ Burgum told Fox News, “we’re actually living under a dictatorship today where he’s, you know, bypassing Congress on immigration policy; he’s bypassing Congress on protecting our border; he’s bypassing Congress on student loan forgiveness; he’s defying the Supreme Court.”

Asked on Sunday to defend his claim, Burgum, who is apparently on the short list of potential running mates for Donald Trump, stood his ground, telling CNN that Biden is “bypassing the other two branches of government to push an ideological view of — whether it’s on economics or whether it’s on climate extremism — he’s doing that without using the other branches.”

It is an odd sort of dictatorship in which the head of state is bound by the rule of law as well as by the authority of other constitutional actors, one in which the dictator’s critics can organize to defeat him in an election without intimidation, penalty or threat of legal sanction — and in which he will leave office if he loses. If nothing else, it is hard to imagine a world in which Biden is both a dictator and someone who would allow Burgum, a regime opponent, to speak freely on national television as he works to defeat Biden at the ballot box.

In fairness to the North Dakota governor, he was trying to make a point about a perceived double standard, in which Trump and not Biden is blasted as an authoritarian for his use of executive orders. But even this is misleading, because the issue with Trump is not the use of executive orders per se. Instead, it is his demonstrated contempt for democratic accountability — he does not accept the right of an electorate to remove him from office — his desire to use the instruments of state to inflict punishment and suffering on his political enemies and his efforts to transform the office of the presidency and the broader executive branch into instruments of his personalist rule.

(That said, there is a conversation for another day about the overreliance on executive orders by presidents of both parties as a symptom of congressional weakness and a product of long-running structural transformations in the nature of the presidency, tied specifically to the growth and pre-eminence of the national security state.)

Governor Burgum is obviously wrong about the idea that Biden is a dictator. But he is not the only Trump ally to speak in such dire terms about the United States. As Politico’s Ian Ward noted, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio — another Republican hoping to stand with Trump as his second — believes that “the United States is on the verge of going up in smoke” and that “electing Trump represents the only hope that Americans have for getting off the path to literal civilization collapse.”

And Russ Vought, former budget chief in the Trump administration and one of the architects of the former president’s second-term agenda, believes that Americans are living in a “post-constitutional” moment that justifies the radical use of executive power to quash protesters with the military, the gutting of the federal civil service in favor of a spoils system for Trump loyalists and the seizing of the power of the purse from Congress. He urges his comrades in arms to “cast ourselves as dissidents of the current regime and to put on our shoulders the full weight of envisioning, articulating, and defending what a Radical Constitutionalism requires in the late hour that our country finds itself in, and then to do it.”

Just as Americans are not living under a Biden dictatorship — in which the watchful eye of Dark Brandon prowls the nation in search of malarkey — the United States is also not on the verge of collapse. Our economy is the envy of the world, we remain the pre-eminent military power, and for all of its serious problems of representation and inclusion, our political system is still capable of handling at least a few of the major issues that face the nation. It does not downplay the challenges we confront to say that we have the capacity and the resources to meet them head on. That, if anything, makes it all the more frustrating that we have not yet secured decent housing, health care, child care and education for everyone in this country. None of these things are beyond our material ability to accomplish — far from it.

Of course, even mentioning the reality of conditions in the United States is a bit beside the point, because the breathless catastrophizing by Trump and his allies is not an expression of ignorance as much as it is a statement of intent. Rhetorically, the MAGA political project of personalist rule in support of social hierarchy, unrestrained capital and the destruction of public goods depends on the conceit that the nation exists in a state of exception that demands extraordinary — and extreme — measures to resolve.

The cultivation of this notion of a state of exception, of a sense of emergency, is the overriding aim of MAGA political messaging. The targets change — in 2020 it was leftists and protesters, this year it is migrants and refugees again, as it was in 2016 — but the goal is always the same: to designate an enemy, to label that enemy an urgent threat to society and to try to win power on a promise to destroy that enemy by any means necessary.

Embedded in this maneuver is a radical claim of sovereignty. The so-called enemy is whoever Trump says it is, and once designated, the entire political system must bend to his will on the notion that he, alone, can fix it.

Sovereign power of the sort that Trump and his allies gesture toward does not exist in the American system as traditionally understood, and there is no provision in our Constitution by which the executive can set aside the rule of law to deal with threats and emergencies. But the point of this rhetoric of exception is to set the conditions for doing just that — for creating an actual state of exception in American politics.

Put another way, if we are on the verge of civilizational collapse, if we are in a post-constitutional moment, if we are already in a dictatorship, then anything is permitted in defense of the old order. And if democracy should stand in the way of recovery and restoration, then democracy should, perhaps, be set aside.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln did not present himself as a bulwark of liberty who could resolve the crisis alone. He tried, as much as possible, to embody and act on his deep belief in the rule of law. For example, after taking unilateral steps to confront the rebellion and defend the Union at the outset of the conflict, he went to Congress to ask for its blessing and support. In his message, issued on July 4, 1861, Lincoln did not make demands or assert extraordinary powers.

Instead, the political scientist Nomi Claire Lazar wrote, Lincoln invited “Congress to share the burden of both reflection and action, to consider and judge the reasons he has given.” What guided his deliberations, she continued, is “precisely a commitment to the rule of law as a collective and collaborative project. What is the best we can do, given the constraints and imperatives, he asks, and how can we do our best together?”

If there is anything to know about either Trump or his closest allies, it is that they do not share this commitment to collaboration or deliberation or public reason. They know only force and dominance. And they want everything to be a crisis, not for an opportunity to affirm democracy, but for a chance to undermine it.

More on the rise of “post-constitutionalism”

David French: MAGA Turns Against the Constitution – June 6, 2024

Peter Wehner: Christian Doomsayers Have Lost It – Dec. 6, 2019

Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington.

Texas Strives to Be # 1 at Infant and Maternal Deaths: Texas’ anti-abortion heartbeat law aimed to save babies, but more infants died.

USA Today

Texas’ anti-abortion heartbeat law aimed to save babies, but more infants died.

Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAY – June 24, 2024

Texas lawmakers touted their heartbeat law as a crusade to save lives, but the reality of the state’s near-total ban on abortion has been deadly.

Hundreds of babies died after the law went into effect, according to a new study published Monday.

The findings in JAMA Pediatrics show that infant deaths rose after Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which banned all abortion after about six weeks from conception. SB 8 became Texas law in September 2021 and U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion just over nine months later, on June 24, 2022. The high court ruling in the Dobbs case prompted more than a dozen states to issue near-total bans on abortion. Observers speculate that evidence will also show increases in infant deaths in those states, akin to what Texas has seen, the study said.

“It just points to some of the devastating consequences of abortion bans that maybe people weren’t thinking about when they passed these laws,” Alison Gemmill, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health who authored the study, told USA TODAY. She called the deaths following the Texas heartbeat law its “spillover effects on moms and babies.”

Abortion bans: More than 171K patients traveled out-of-state for abortions in 2023, new data shows

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, right, speaks at a pro-life leaders press conference on Feb. 28, 2022, outside the state capitol. The event was held to celebrate the six month anniversary of the Texas Heartbeat Act. Briana Sanchez, Austin American-Statesman

In the wake of the law’s passage in Texas, more babies died before their first birthday, likely due to birth defects or genetic problems that wouldn’t have allowed them to live, the study found. These pregnancies would typically have been terminated by abortion, according to researchers. The Texas heartbeat law does not provide exceptions for pregnancies involving such conditions. Mothers are legally obligated to carry these babies to birth under state law.

In the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association, Gemmill and researchers from Johns Hopkins and Michigan State University wrote that the Texas law was linked to “unexpected increases in infant and neonatal deaths” between 2021 and 2022. Prior research drew a correlation between the uptick in infant deaths and anti-abortion laws taking effect, however, no studies until now have attributed the fatalities directly to the laws prohibiting the termination of these pregnancies.

“Abortion care is an essential component of comprehensive healthcare, and when it is restricted, the human impacts are devastating,” Wendy Davis, a senior adviser for Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, said in a statement. Davis, who filibustered for abortion rights when she was a Democratic state senator, noted that the study only covered 2022, not the results in 2023 and 2024 in the wake of a more restrictive abortion ban that came with the Dobbs decision. This “likely means the situation on the ground today is even more dire,” Davis said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not dispute the study’s findings but defended the Republican-controlled state’s anti-abortion record. This effort included the 2021 heartbeat law “to save the innocent unborn, and now thousands of children have been given a chance at life,” Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said in a statement to USA TODAY. He said the governor has taken “significant action to protect the sanctity of life” and offered resources to expectant mothers “so they can choose life for their child.”

Anti-abortion advocates also didn’t contest the uptick in infant deaths cited in the study. Advocates for the heartbeat law and other legislation to restrict abortions say such bans protect life. They say terminating a fetus with a terminal illness is “choosing to kill that child intentionally.”

The overwhelming majority of such abortions happen before the fetus is viable. In Texas, legislation has dramatically reduced the number of abortions performed in the state.

Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for Texas Alliance for Life, said the study’s findings didn’t come as a surprise. She said babies born with disabilities and even fatal anomalies deserve a chance at life, even if that means a newborn dies after birth from a condition doctors anticipated would be lethal. The death of a child is not easy, she acknowledged. She noted that her nonprofit offers resources for families grieving from such losses.

“In Texas, we celebrate every unborn child’s life saved. We treasure the fact that our laws are protecting women’s lives,” she said. “We don’t apologize for the fact that we don’t support discrimination against children facing disabilities or fatal diagnoses in or out of the womb. And that’s the line that we just believe should not be crossed.”

Gemmill, of Johns Hopkins, said babies that died shortly after being born with birth defects “probably caused a lot of unnecessary trauma to families.”

Maternal health: Chronic hypertension has soared among pregnant women. Treatment is not keeping pace

Abortion rights (in orange) and anti-abortion advocates (in blue) rally in the rotunda of the State Capitol, as the state Senate meets to consider legislation restricting abortion rights in Austin, Texas on July 12, 2013. Mike Stone, Reuters.

The researchers examined death records beginning after the heartbeat law went into effect. The study created a “synthetic Texas” that simulated outcomes that would have happened had the law not been in effect and compared the numbers to national trends during that period. In 2021, 1,985 Texas infants died before their first birthday. The next year, with S.B. 8 in effect, the fatalities jumped to 2,240, a 12.9% increase that came as the U.S. experienced an overall increase of less than 2%. Deaths attributable to congenital anomalies or birth defects spiked nearly 23% in Texas compared to a 3% decrease nationally.

“It suggests that, really, this policy was responsible for this increase in infant deaths in Texas,” Gemmill said.

The study is significant because of Texas’ role as a conservative state with urban and rural areas that may reflect what happens in the rest of the U.S., according to Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, an associate professor of pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Texas has been living under restrictions longer than other states that enacted abortion bans after the Dobbs ruling.

“When people ask me why this is happening, it’s really simple,” said Wilkinson, who was not involved with the new study. “When you take away people’s ability to make decisions (about) if and when they have pregnancies, you’re going to see outcomes like increasing infant and maternal mortality.”

In this file photo, anti-abortion activists stand in the Texas State Capitol to protest an International Women's Day sit-in for abortion rights on March 8, 2023. Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman. — In this file photo, anti-abortion activists stand in the Texas State Capitol to protest an International Women’s Day sit-in for abortion rights on March 8, 2023. Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman.

The study did not examine the effects of infant deaths on the health of mothers who were legally required to deliver dead babies to term, nor did it look at the mental health effects of carrying infants and delivering them, only to see them die. The study also raises but does not tackle questions about the financial cost to families of carrying and delivering terminally ill newborns.

Gemmill is now working to understand the impact of abortion restrictions on parents of different races and ethnicities. Prior research has shown that Black mothers and babies face higher death rates than other groups.

The study reflects what Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the abortion rights advocacy nonprofit Center for Reproductive Rights, has seen in the courtroom arguing against Texas’ laws. She recently represented women who sued the state after they were denied medical abortions. One of her clients, Samatha Casiano, was required by law to carry a child that developed without a brain. In late May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled pregnant patients must have a “life-threatening condition” in order to terminate a pregnancy.

Duane questioned the claim by anti-abortion activists that Texas is a “pro-life” state, given the study’s findings. “Women are hurting, families are hurting, babies are dying, and no one in the state is taking responsibility for any of that real human suffering,” she said.

In late 2023, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found increases in infant deaths for the first time in more than 20 years. The states identified in the report with increased fatalities were states that restricted abortion access, however, experts cautioned at the time that they could not say what had caused the spike in fatalities.

The Texas study went one step further, finding one state where abortion restrictions resulted in more deaths.