So how was the recent SCOTUS decision different? More broad in its application?
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It was not previously extended to immunity for criminal acts, and the definition of what counts as an official act was very expansive.
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Someone needs to tell me what the requirements are from a DOJ/OLC point of view of when they are willing to challenge a direct precedent that the political side opposes.
Like, I assumed that as normal employees of the federal government the lawyers at DOJ/OLC are bound to not make cases that go against well established precedent like these, just because they are bound to see that laws are faithfully executed, and an existing Supreme Court precedent is as clear cut as they come, no? It’s not as if other presidents didn’t want to fire members of any of these independent commissions before, but they didn’t even try because it was obviously illegal and following illegal orders is no defense?
$5 says the Robert court goes down in history as bad as Taney of Dred Scott fame and Fuller of Plessy. Maybe worse in the long run.
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I’ll give it two years. The mid terms may just look like the bloodbath the Rethugs have been pushing for…only it will be their blood on the floor.
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That’s what’s so destabilizing about the Roberts court — it just makes sh*t up.”
That’s the precedent, pulling stuff out of their assteroids. It exactly what the Justices Operatives did in the Trump vs United States.
The closest Historical precedent is the logic used by the Court in 1875’s United States v. Reese. While the 15th Amendment prohibited voter disenfranchisement based on race it was perfectly fine to keep black citizens from voting by other means.
Following the ruling, states began to adopt measures that were designed to exclude Black Americans from voting…They adopted devices such as poll taxes…literacy tests, …grandfather clauses…and more restrictive residency requirements…
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Way worse, presiding over the demise of the Constitution and all.
It’s getting to the point where solutions are getting worse and worse and fewer and fewer.
What happens when Brown Shirts bust into one of these gopper Town Halls and just start breaking heads and filling up the paddy wagons?
What is Jerry Connelly going to tell us then, make sure to cover your head?
Federal workers are supposed to have protections from random and without cause firings or furloughs. The Executive does not even have a line item veto, yet, the CFPB is now defunct? And other independent or semi independent agencies? Biden couldn’t get that worthless turd DeJoy removed from the USPS for 4 years, and now trump is just going to dissolve that board and take it over, and fire half the department and sell off the assets to the highest briber and/or bider?
I admire the optimism of folks like Rachel Maddow, mine comes and goes. The longer trump goes without a real check in the nose the more it goes.
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$7.25 an hour is slavery.
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Things get even more ugly. But, I am pinning my hopes on Americans being the belligerent bastards I know we can be. We will not go down without a fight.
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Began composing a reply to your message about 4 hours ago but got wrapped up in late Vietnam - early Watergate recollections …
The decision is Nixon v Fitzgerald, which you can find at this link if you’re up for some reading (and you may well be, if you’re given to Watergate-era nostalgia; the decision quotes a memo from Al Butterfield to H.R. Haldeman:
“‘Fitzgerald is no doubt a top-notch cost expert, but he must be given very low
marks in loyalty; and after all, loyalty is the name of the game …’ and '[w]e should let him bleed for a while.”
Nixon v. Fitzgerald | 457 U.S. 731 (1982) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center, at 737-738 (footnotes omitted).
John Ehrlichman, Patrick Buchanan and Charles “Born Again” Colson (in his born-as-he-actually- was persona) also have cameos, while Sen. Wm. Proxmire (D WI) makes noises stage left.
Long and short, Fitzgerald was a budget analyst for Dept. of the Air Force, and gave testimony to a Congressional subcommittee that had to have been embarrassing to the Johnson administration and frustrating to incoming Nixon’s plans; his position was eliminated under the guise of a reduction in force, but the media pounced, Fitzgerald commenced action and Nixon later managed to make something of a horse’s ass of himself by very publicly taking responsibility for Fitzgerald’s departure but then retracting it through the WH Press Office the next day.
Lots of substantive and procedural issues, but ultimately SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that the President is absolutely immune in civil actions for damages: The language is “[i]n view of the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions, we think it appropriate to recognize absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.” Id at 756. Very broad.
This was 1982, some time after the pardon. Do you remember your President Nixon?
Factoid: Justice Stevens voted with the majority.
I certainly recall Nixon. I was in my 20s and 30s. He wasn’t all bad. I ended up in environmental conservation as a career. He supported all our important environmental laws.
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Second reply. And I certainly recall what you are referencing. I wonder how many readers, like me, were adults at that time.
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I am too young to recall Nixon. I remember Ford but Nixon was present because of all of the impersonators.
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Thank you for your stewardship of the environment!
Agree that Nixon made several good gestures, much as I suspect some cynicism underlaid them.
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I appreciate your cordial reply. I am in my mid-80s. No President in my lifetime has been all I or my family would have hoped for. To label them all good or all bad is too simplistic. FDR has some very sorry sides. Truman wasn’t given adequate credit, although he had his issues. Eisenhower would be left of many of today’s Democrats. And so on.
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But they were all better than this guy. Again, I was too young to remember him, but I believe as warped as he was, Nixon wanted what was best for the United. It wasn’t a personal grift.
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I was 17 when Nixon resigned, living at home in what was a reddish purple town ( bright red today) Fascinating to watch from that vantage point.
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I was in my 30s.
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One of my favorite Trivial Pursuit questions/answers. Where was Richard Nixon when Gerald Ford took the oath of office? 35,000 ft over Missouri.
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“realizing a longtime goal of many in the conservative legal movement.”
Could we PLEASE stop using the lower case ‘c’ for Conservative? Nothing, not one single thing these traitors stand for is conservative. When you refer to the fascist party, we should ALWAYS use Conservative.
These traitors have hijacked our country, are we going to self-hijack our ability to at least write like we’re awake and pissed off?
OT
I was thinking about Jefferson the other day, and his life-long relationship/correspondence with Adams. I imagined them as transported into contemporary times, and what their reactions could be. I couldn’t fix Adam’s response in my mind, but Jefferson was apoplectic of what this ‘king’ was doing, with the with the help of dozens of bald-faced traitors. Imagine what Washington would have thought of this party, having warned about parties!
And then I wonder WHY we are all sitting on our asses and wringing our hands, and why a leader that’s PISSED OFF hasn’t emerged. Have we become that weak and corrupt as a people?
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Thank you for announcing that you’re not genuine. Your reward is that you get ignored.