Everyone should read it. It's a real piece of work. Your example of citing Clinton v. Jones as a reason for presidential immunity is a solid example of the calibre of their thinking. They roll out a shopping list of references to all the power a president has, then conclude there is a "presumption of Presidential immunity". And that's it. Thats their whole argument. The remainder of the opinion is dedicated to blowing enough smoke to hide a battleship. The whole thing is deliberately, maddeningly vague, in proper Constitutional style. I think the only question to ask is "will this case give the judiciary and SC in particular more power?" That's the side they will come down on. This decision sets the Court above Congress and the Executive as the ultimate decider if a President can be charged with any crime.
Henceforth is a fine cat name. We had a deaf, blind hermaphrodite fraidy cat who seemed to think that if he could not see us, we could not see him. Good dresser tho – always in a tux. He was the Edward Everett Horton of cats.
Off topic, I honestly question whether the justices write the entirety of these decisions, or think deeply about them in much detail. Obviously, I have no evidence for this. But the right wing think tanks do have an army of lawyers drawing up various plans and these decisions are intricately designed, almost like a lace wedding dress. It’s quite possible they have turned the SCOTUS into something like what they did with ALEC, where they have a strategy, and then they turn out a bespoke product in order to achieve their strategy.
Hasn’t there been a falsification of the evidence used in certain of the cases? E.g., there WAS no website maker. The coach DID force the students to pray, did not ‘invite’ them to pray, and so on.
So it’s certainly possible there is a little army of craftspeople who work behind the scenes for the SCOTUS boutique. A kind of ‘Jeff Koons’ production line.
The justices have their own army of clerks from high-class law schools who do most of the work. The clerks also read (many of) the hundreds of amicus curiae briefs submitted by interested parties including all those think tanks, which often contain mistakes, garbage research, or nonsense (the bad abortion decisions are especially full of those), and the justices and clerks have no scientific expertise to evaluate them with, and they get a lot of things wrong. There was some tremendous radio reporting on it last weekend https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/no-joe-biden-didnt-poop-his-pants-plus-the-supreme-courts-factchecking-problem So yes, your suspicions are correct.
Some justices work to put their own personal style on an opinion. There are bad justices who are good writers, like Scalia, bad justices who are exceptionally bad writers but think they're good, like Alito. Ginsburg was good in both ways, but I'm feeling that Sotomayor and Jackson are even better and Kagan is pretty great too. I'm hearing positive things about Barrett, too, to the effect that she's better at thinking than the rest of the conservatives.
Thank you! This thought just occurred to me about the sausage getting made. I haven’t had time to find out more.
Yes, my comment makes me sound dumber than I am (though I really don’t know that much about everything). I knew about the clerks but this seems more like a creation when I read these-like ‘put in a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that.’ There are so many laws and practices they are disabling in such a systematic way. I know clerks are smart but maybe I figured it would have to be more the work of many older corporate law hands, coordinating with these larger goals. Some of these are diabolical in the way that they will keep everything tied up. And what’s happening with SCOTuS now is so very strategized, not the work of even a committee but the work of the most evil masterminds on the right. They are almost doing it like an assembly line now. But probably it is the Amicus curiae briefs were a lot of this comes through.
The way lawyers thing is mystifying to me. I have been reading Adrian Vermuele, and a couple other people. I find it terrifying like reading the work of evil wizards. Does it even matter what we say or think when they have all their fantasies fulfilled? But maybe I give them too much credit.
This was always my fear—that Trump would team up with the lawyers like Bush did. The only thing saving us the first time was that he didn’t, really.
So I read the opinion (thanks to Emptywheel)
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Everyone should read it. It's a real piece of work. Your example of citing Clinton v. Jones as a reason for presidential immunity is a solid example of the calibre of their thinking. They roll out a shopping list of references to all the power a president has, then conclude there is a "presumption of Presidential immunity". And that's it. Thats their whole argument. The remainder of the opinion is dedicated to blowing enough smoke to hide a battleship. The whole thing is deliberately, maddeningly vague, in proper Constitutional style. I think the only question to ask is "will this case give the judiciary and SC in particular more power?" That's the side they will come down on. This decision sets the Court above Congress and the Executive as the ultimate decider if a President can be charged with any crime.
Henceforth is a fine cat name. We had a deaf, blind hermaphrodite fraidy cat who seemed to think that if he could not see us, we could not see him. Good dresser tho – always in a tux. He was the Edward Everett Horton of cats.
Off topic, I honestly question whether the justices write the entirety of these decisions, or think deeply about them in much detail. Obviously, I have no evidence for this. But the right wing think tanks do have an army of lawyers drawing up various plans and these decisions are intricately designed, almost like a lace wedding dress. It’s quite possible they have turned the SCOTUS into something like what they did with ALEC, where they have a strategy, and then they turn out a bespoke product in order to achieve their strategy.
Hasn’t there been a falsification of the evidence used in certain of the cases? E.g., there WAS no website maker. The coach DID force the students to pray, did not ‘invite’ them to pray, and so on.
So it’s certainly possible there is a little army of craftspeople who work behind the scenes for the SCOTUS boutique. A kind of ‘Jeff Koons’ production line.
The justices have their own army of clerks from high-class law schools who do most of the work. The clerks also read (many of) the hundreds of amicus curiae briefs submitted by interested parties including all those think tanks, which often contain mistakes, garbage research, or nonsense (the bad abortion decisions are especially full of those), and the justices and clerks have no scientific expertise to evaluate them with, and they get a lot of things wrong. There was some tremendous radio reporting on it last weekend https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/no-joe-biden-didnt-poop-his-pants-plus-the-supreme-courts-factchecking-problem So yes, your suspicions are correct.
Some justices work to put their own personal style on an opinion. There are bad justices who are good writers, like Scalia, bad justices who are exceptionally bad writers but think they're good, like Alito. Ginsburg was good in both ways, but I'm feeling that Sotomayor and Jackson are even better and Kagan is pretty great too. I'm hearing positive things about Barrett, too, to the effect that she's better at thinking than the rest of the conservatives.
Thank you! This thought just occurred to me about the sausage getting made. I haven’t had time to find out more.
Yes, my comment makes me sound dumber than I am (though I really don’t know that much about everything). I knew about the clerks but this seems more like a creation when I read these-like ‘put in a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that.’ There are so many laws and practices they are disabling in such a systematic way. I know clerks are smart but maybe I figured it would have to be more the work of many older corporate law hands, coordinating with these larger goals. Some of these are diabolical in the way that they will keep everything tied up. And what’s happening with SCOTuS now is so very strategized, not the work of even a committee but the work of the most evil masterminds on the right. They are almost doing it like an assembly line now. But probably it is the Amicus curiae briefs were a lot of this comes through.
The way lawyers thing is mystifying to me. I have been reading Adrian Vermuele, and a couple other people. I find it terrifying like reading the work of evil wizards. Does it even matter what we say or think when they have all their fantasies fulfilled? But maybe I give them too much credit.
This was always my fear—that Trump would team up with the lawyers like Bush did. The only thing saving us the first time was that he didn’t, really.
**No disrespect to lawyers, generally, of course.
Of course! Some of our best friends...
The very best bullshitters stand as shining examples for the rest of 'em, including and especially the tufthunting retainers who dream...
We can see clearly now that Trump is OLWI*
Obnoxious Liar with Impunity
"Once again, the final score is SCOTUS 6, USA 3. Now back to the station, after this word from our sponsors."