But as Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in her dissent, the lesson from Nixon is that when presidents use their power to commit official acts in pursuit of a criminal scheme, that is when we should be most concerned about their conduct and most eager for them to face accountability. Because that is when their criminal conduct poses the most heightened threat to democracy. If the president can take this immense power we entrust him with and manipulate it for corrupt ends—knowing he will never face accountability—then we have fundamentally changed the nature of what the presidency is. He is no longer a person who is elected by the people to represent them for four years. He is an emperor who walks into office, surveys his new powers, and gets to decide how to use them for his own corrupt advantage—to enrich himself, to entrench his authority, to prevent the peaceful transition to power, to even execute his rivals. I just think that is exactly the opposite of how the executive power had been understood until Monday morning. And I find myself baffled that six justices would say that presidential accountability is now constitutionally prohibited rather than constitutionally required
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Fauci says he has ‘no doubt’ Biden is capable of continuing as president
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4754808-fauci-no-doubt-biden-capable-as-president/
He called Biden “very probing in his questions, very analytical, very calm about things,” and said during briefings, Biden always asked “very relevant questions.”
Fauci continued, “So my interactions with him, I have to say, have been very, very positive, in every way.”
Conservative Heritage leader: ‘Second American Revolution’ will be bloodless ‘if the left allows it to be’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753439-heritage-leader-second-american-revolution/
The leader of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation argued the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity will reinforce a “second American Revolution,” which he said would “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Trump attorney argues ‘fake electors’ scheme was an ‘official act’
Trump attorney Will Scharf told CNN Monday night that some acts alleged in the former president’s federal election subversion indictment do constitute private conduct but the effort to put forth slates of alternate electors in 2020 from key battleground states is not one of them.
“We believe the assembly of those alternate slates of electors was an official act of the presidency,” Scharf said, noting the Supreme Court left that question for lower courts to decide.
John Dean says Nixon ‘would have survived’ Watergate under immunity ruling
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4750581-supreme-court-immunity-nixon/
John Dean, former White House counsel for the Nixon administration, said he believes former President Nixon “would have survived” the Watergate scandal if the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling issued Monday, which largely shields former presidents from criminal prosecution for actions in office, existed at the time.
Not Responding to Embarrassment Gives power of Beracha?
There is a widespread claim that not responding when someone insults or embarrasses you gives you the power of Beracha
Does anyone know its source?
I have been told it comes from the statement "toleh eretz al blima" but can find nothing, it is also claimed the following is the source but I don't see how?
Chullin (89a)With regard to that verse, Rabbi Ile’a says: The world endures only in the merit of one who restrains [shebolem] himself during a quarrel, as it is stated: “He hangs the earth upon nothing [belima]. Rabbi Abbahu says: The world endures only in the merit of one who renders himself as if he were non-existent, as it is stated: “And underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27), i.e., one who considers himself to be underneath everything else is the everlasting arm that upholds the world.
Rambam (Sanhedrin 26:06) Although a judge or a nasi has the right to look past affronts to his honor, he cannot look past being cursed. Similarly, with regard to other people, even though the person who was cursed is prepared to look past the matter, the person who uttered the curse is lashed, for he committed a transgression and incurred liability. If, however, a person is obligated to be placed under a ban of ostracism, because he conducted himself in an unbridled manner in court, and the judges desire to look past the affront to their honor and not impose a ban of ostracism, they have that license, provided it will not lead to a decline in the honor of the Creator. For example, people at large were repudiating the words of the Torah and the judges. Since the people overstepped the bounds, the court must act firmly and punish as they see necessary.
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Donald Trump Says Fake Electors Scheme Was 'Official Act'
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fake-electors-scheme-supreme-court-1919928
Donald Trump lawyer has said that an alleged fake elector scheme was an "official act" and so should be immune from prosecution in Trump's federal election interference case.
Trump's team is alleged to have created and submitted fraudulent certificates to falsely claim Trump had won the Electoral College vote in certain states to disrupt President Joe Biden's victory.
Johnson dismisses Democratic ‘hyperbole’ over immunity ruling: ‘It’s madness’
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750970-house-speaker-dismisses-presidential-immunity-fears/
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday shrugged off Democrats’ concern over the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, calling their fears of future presidential criminality “madness.”
“Look, there’s all sorts of hyperbole tonight…and just this, fantastical, these hypotheticals they’ve made up [that] future presidents are going to turn into assassins and all the rest,” Johnson said Monday in an interview on Fox News. “It’s madness.”
“Listen, remember this. The president and vice president are the only two officers in our constitutional system that are elected by all the people, no one who is elected to that office going to be prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity,” Johnson added.
Trump’s Assassination Fantasy Has a Darker Purpose
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/trump-biden-assassination-fbi/678476/
Trump has a way of projecting his own vices onto others. His view of presidential power is absolute—to the point that his lawyer recently argued before the Supreme Court that ordering the military to assassinate a political rival “could well be an official act.” There is probably some limiting principle to this particular argument, but the fact that the issue is even under discussion is not a good sign for our democracy. Perhaps he believes that Biden was out to shoot him because he thinks that’s an order that presidents can freely give.
The Supreme Court’s disastrous Trump immunity decision, explained
https://www.vox.com/scotus/358292/supreme-court-trump-immunity-dictatorship
Roberts’s opinion in Trump, however, seems to go even further than Trump’s lawyer did. The Constitution, after all, states that the president “shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” So, if presidential authority is “conclusive and preclusive” when presidents exercise their constitutionally granted powers, the Court appears to have ruled that yes, Trump could order the military to assassinate one of his political opponents. And nothing can be done to him for it.
Macron’s implicit endorsement of ‘antisemitic,’ ‘pro-Hamas’ far left shocks French Jews
Macron, who will remain president regardless of the parliamentary electoral results, “just endorsed a party controlled by pro-Hamas” forces, Yohann Taieb, a French-Jewish journalist, wrote on X on Monday. The Jewish groups that endorsed him were “being taken for a ride,” Taieb added.
This sentiment, shared by many French Jews, stems from a series of unusual choices by Macron throughout one of the most tumultuous political episodes in France’s recent history.