Friday, February 9, 2024

A Special Conundrum; and Sanity at Oral Argument

So the Special Counsel's report is out. The aspects that jump out to me:

- This President can no longer act willfully?!?

- 1.  He will not be prosecuted (only) because by virtue of memory loss he's not responsible.  2.  Biden and his team vociferously deny the memory loss.  3.  Thus, he should be prosecuted?!?

As to the Trump/ballot question, it has seemed obvious to me since this whole question started that there's no way that people's rights to vote for a Presidential candidate cannot be left to the vagaries of how countless state and local elected and appointed individuals might choose to behave.  In the worst case, I lose my president because a single official in Maine (as an example) decides that people in Maine can't vote for Person X?  That's obviously absurd - Iran, Russia, Cuba and any number of banana republics could go to school on what's going on here.  But I confess that I didn't unpeel the onion for the technical underpinnings of what I saw as an obvious end result, and I was concerned.  Kudos to all the members of the Court for, each in his/her own way, cogently and crisply getting to the applicable rationale(s).  Obviously, whether it's a Dem or a Republican in the crosshairs (can ANYone take a principled position on ANYthing?!?), the result could not solely have been otherwise.  I hope they don't wind up implying that Congress could make this choice.  That would present similar (although not quite as out-of-control) possibilities.  Maybe they'll simply say they're not deciding the "what if Congress were to venture out" question.  But, thankfully, it looks like we're safe for now.  And, amusingly, in the "be careful for what you wish" department, this whole thing will shortly backfire (esp. with liberal Justices piling on) and play into Trump's (accurate) persecution narrative.  I guess I'll wait for all the commentator lawyers who got on the soapbox with errant analysis as to the obvious validity of what Colorado did to apologize for being, well, bad lawyers.  I'll be waiting a long time, I suspect.  Still no apologies for the Trump-is-a-Russian-spy nonsense.  It's going to be an interesting November.



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