Imagine . . .

Imagine a criminal trial of, say, a major mob boss on racketeering charges. The trial takes place in a well-to-do jurisdiction, and the jurors are mostly professionals or mid-to-upper corporate management types. Now imaging that of those 12 jurors, 4 of them have their high-paying jobs as a result of the defendant having pulled strings to get them hired, and the spouse of a 5th juror had worked for an associate of the defendant for his part in the very same illegal conduct.

There isn't a courtroom in the country where those jurors would be permitted to remain on the jury. And yet, we are expected to believe that out of 9 justices, three who owe their jobs to Trump and a fourth whose spouse was at least an active participant in the very same scheme, are capable of being fair and impartial as they sit in judgment of the case. That's how blatantly corrupt all of this is!

My prediction on the immunity claim

Based on just a few minutes of listening to the oral arguments in Trump’s immunity case, i think I can predict where the right wing justices will come down. I believe they will rule that a president does not enjoy absolute immunity with respect to private acts, however, they will come up with a multi-pronged test for what constitutes a private, aa opposed to an official, act, and will send the case back to Judge Chutkin with instructions to apply that test to the acts in question. Her application of that test will then itself be subject to litigation up through the courts.

In other words, they will rule so as to gum up the prosecutorial works, giving Trump the delay he wants. I hope I am wrong about that, but I don't think I am.

Leaving abortion up to the individual states is untenable

It is untenable for the very same reason that the Fugitive Slave Act was ultimately untenable: because it raises questions about the obligations under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of states where abortion is legal to those states where it is not. You simply cannot have a situation where something is treated as a major crime in one state while being perfectly legal in another. Republicans who try to make this claim are attempting to claim a "middle ground" that does not, in fact, exist!

It saddened me to write this . . .

This is a comment I posted in response to retired Justice Stephen Breyer's op-ed in today's NY Times (see https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/opinion/stephen-breyer-friendship-court.html?ugrp=c&unlocked_article_code=1.hk0.zL3T.vi50e3X9BiUj&smid=url-share ). I have always held Justice Breyer in high regard, and so I was quite saddened to feel compelled to write this comment:

The pressure campaign on Justice Sotomayor needs to stop!

This entire notion that everything can be gamed out in advance is a fiction, based on the mistaken notion that it would have made a difference if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had only retired while Obama was president. It would not have. McConnell was hellbent on preventing Obama from naming a third justice to the court, and would have used every procedural and parliamentary trick in the book to prevent it from happening. It is true that Democrats held the Senate through 2013, but they still had the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees, and McConnell wouldn’t have hesitated to use it.

Besides, what with Manchin and Sinema still in the Senate, it is unclear whether Democrats could even seat a justice at the present moment!

And in any case, Sotomayor is just 69 years old. Yes, she is a type 1 diabetic, but she has managed that condition since she was 7 years old! And there are no other reports of any particular illness currently dogging her.

How NOT to respond to posts expressing extreme frustration and anger over the ruling reducing Trump's bond

A lot of people are making comments today borne of frustration and perfectly understandable anger. But responding to them with lectures on how they are hurting Biden or helping Trump is perhaps the least helpful way to respond, even if you believe that to be true.

Look, these posts are coming out of raw emotion. Many of the people who post them will cool down after they've had a chance to work through those emotions. People are entitled to their emotions, and are entitled to express them. We should all respect that. But to respond to posts expressing legitimate emotions with a kind of cool, detached rationality does nothing to help them process those emotions in a productive way. And in some cases, it may only serve to entrench them in their initial emotional response.

Just my two cents, but please consider refraining from the need to "correct" the people who are making these postings, at least until after they've had a reasonable opportunity to fully grapple with the emotions they are experiencing!

My Dad always used to say . . .

. . . "Don't shit where you eat."

It's advice that would have served Fani Willis well!

Last night, my 20-year-old grandniece reached out to me to ask what I thought of RFK, Jr. . . .

Here was my response:

"I sometimes wish there was cognitive impairment"

If that's what dimentia looks like . . .

. . . then I'll have what he's having!