MichiganCardinal

The closest I can see the majority getting to actually defining "official act" is where that say that "[w]hen the President acts pursuant to 'constitutional and statutory authority,' he takes official action to perform the functions of his office... Determining whether an action is covered by immunity thus begins with assessing the President’s authority to take that action." I would argue that POTUS has constitutional authority to be the commander in chief, but that does not equate to a free license to kill. I think in such a case, the Court would - and should - more narrowly define "official act" to include only actions naturally associated with the execution of his duties as POTUS. Commanding the bombing of a village in the Middle East against DOD advice because you illogically think a terrorist is there, and it results in dozens of innocent deaths? Probably immune. Commanding the bombing of the home of a political opponent because you want to win an election? Probably not immune. They definitely could have been more clear, but this is what SCOTUS loves to do. Send it down to the lower court, have them guess what SCOTUS wants to be the line between official and unofficial, have the case slowly trickle back upstream, have the Court of Appeals take a stab at it too, and then finally tell everyone a year or two later what they actually wanted all along.

From ACB's concurrence: She goes on to say that she would not have vacated the judgement but instead declared the acts at issue here not official acts based off the present record, and that the case could therefore go to trial. That means at least four already agree that Trump should be able to be prosecuted in at least this case.

I think seven of the nine would be offended by this notion. Should definitely be nine of nine, but I don't think Roberts, ACB, Gorsuch, or Kavanaugh would participate in an outright coup.

Stood outside SCOTUS starting at 5am to get a front row ear to the opinions today. I think what will stick with me the longest is Roberts' saying "I wrote the opinion in Trump v. United States" and the deafening sound of a hundred people leaning up in their chairs, moving to a fresh notepad, and clicking their pens. FWIW, I don't think this is the affront to democracy that the dissent makes it out to be. What if Trump had directed the DOJ to prosecute Obama for conspiracy to commit murder on day one, on account of his drone strikes? There just has to be some level of criminal immunity provided to the commander in chief. The question at the end of the day will be how far the periphery of that presumptive immunity will go, which almost has to be anecdotal and case-by-case in nature, because (hopefully) so few Presidents are getting indicted and charged with crimes. At the end of the day, voters are who should be holding elected officials accountable for their official acts. That being said, if the Court comes back next term after a Biden victory in November and says "sorry, but a President inciting a violent mob and violating RICO in an attempt to overthrow an election is within that umbrella of an official act", then that's a different conversation, and the dissent will be right to be livid. I don't think they'll have the five votes to get that far though, especially when the political pressure of an election is removed.

The problem isn't that they'll vote for him. It's that they won't vote at all, or will do something even dumber and vote for RFK or some other useless third party. Trump has his base, Biden by and large has everybody else. The name of the game is solely about getting everybody else in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia to vote.

Not everyone! I think the concept of having the black female prosecutor be the one to take down the racist felon has some extremely appealing attributes to it, to the party and to America generally. I can't imagine there are any number of people who would vote for Biden but not Kamala, and that's probably the most important thing to consider, if they actually entertain replacing him. The worst case scenario has to be a net neutral. But I think nominating Kamala would scare Don more than any other candidate. Kamala had her fair share of bad press early in the administration, but that seems to be past her now.

As much as I don’t like her (or any political prosecutor), a Harris/Buttigieg ticket may win running away. I don’t think Joe would allow it though and I don’t think anyone would stand up to him about it. I also don’t think it’s even necessary. It’s June. He’s just old. His opponent is a felon who led a coup.

Hey now, lawyers have to eat too!! 😉

How much time did he spend on this closing statement for it to be this incoherent?

Biden looks like he’s 20 years older than Trump. I think it might be true that if Trump hadn’t committed so many crimes to lead to so many investigations and so many future convictions, that he wouldn’t have run for President. It’s the only sure way he sees to stay out of prison though. In any event, this doesn’t matter. There are no real undecideds in 2024. It’s all going to be decided by the turnout in 4-6 states.

If Love is for real and the Packers maintain some amount of their 2023 momentum, they will be a tough out in the North.

This is the nature of the election though. The right has nominated and rallied behind a misogynistic felon and the left has decided that standards matter to at least some extent (and then spent way too much time fighting with each other about to what extent).

Where will this debate rank amongst the top 25 football games from the past year? I think viewership will be incredibly high but the debate itself will mean incredibly little, barring an incredible gaffe on either side. I can't imagine aren't a lot of "undecided" voters so much as Biden supporters who are pissed at him about one thing or another. Both sides and their supporters will declare victory when the debate ends. The election will likely come down to turnout, which is decided in October and November, not June.

Bold of him to deny NFL rumors in... *checks notes*... June.

If they included the top 10 instead of stopping at 8, Iffy would have been #10.

Good on the NHL for doing their job instead of what would have been easy in front of the Florida crowd.

Sorry Kenny. You’re in Canada now.

They deserve it. But nahhhhhhhh

This is a damn good game seven.

Pretty good offseason for QB1. Hopefully the first of two rings he'll get in the next 365 days.

Talking heads still can't find a picture of Buggs in a Chiefs jersey.

We probably won't, but I hope Campbell and Johnson do.

I can't imagine Hooker has any value right now. He's never taken an NFL snap, or even dressed for a game outside of as an emergency 3rd option. If he was going to be traded like Matt Cassel, it would come in 2025 or 2026.

I'm skeptical he ever would have returned last year, even if there was a miraculous run. But the Jets did activate his practice window, and I don't think they would do that solely to appease him..... OK, maybe they would do that.... I do think he was pushing it though, and he did do that "speed bridge" procedure that was designed to have him return much quicker than normal. FWIW, Kirk Cousins did not get the speed bridge procedure done when he tore his Achilles. At the end of the day he's a 40-year-old dude. And 40-year-old dudes don't just jump back up from a catastrophic injury in the same way 20-year-old kids often can. The standard recovery time from an Achilles usually wouldn't even guarantee a week one return this year. He's an athlete, but he's not in the best shape of his life, and there were already signs that his best days were behind him in 2022. He threw for the fewest amount of yards in any complete season in his career and the most picks since his rookie year. If you're a believer in QBR, that was also a career low. Even healthy, I wouldn't be confident if I was a Jets fan that we were getting the 2021 MVP as opposed to 2022 mediocrity.

At the bar tonight I was approached by someone in a Nats hat who saw my Lions sweatshirt and asked me my thoughts on Hendon Hooker and whether the Lions should trade him. Rather bizarre given the timing of this thread. I’m sure Brad and Dan will think about backup QB and Hooker’s development. I just don’t intend to (because Goff is invincible and will never ever get hurt). Fans aren’t going to see enough from Hooker in the preseason to tell anything anyway. Even if he plays all 12 quarters, he’s too young in his NFL development, and the preseason is not a representative sample (good or bad). They still have good ole Nate Sudfeld on the roster. I expect them to keep him around as the emergency third QB.