Once again we are faced with the despicable ethics violation of an alleged authority making her readers dumber and more ignorant. And, once again, the example falls in the category of someone unqualified to read a Supreme Court opinion declaring what the holding means without understanding it.
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a 2020 MacArthur “genius” grant recipient who opines in the Times and elsewhere on culture, “higher education, work, media and inequality”(she is black, so I guess that’s mandatory). Her credentials do not justify her writing this in her latest essay:
“[T]he Supreme Court finally weighed in on presidential immunity. There is no other way to read its decision than as a signal that whoever owns the Republican Party also owns the power to break the law.”
That’s funny, because there is no possible way to read that ridiculously misrepresented decision to mean that at all. If she’s read the decision, then she’s lying or incompetent. If she hasn’t read the decision, then her ethical breach is worse.
Cottom never bothers to explain how the carefully measured majority opinion in Trump v. United States signals that Republicans can break the law, which is also despicable. It’s so obvious to Cottom, you see, that there’s no reason for her to support her contention. This is a typical Leftist tactic, especially when they, as the saying goes, “got nothin.”
My guess is that she, like so many other lazy pundits (but she’s a genius!) is basing her analysis on unconscionable falsehoods proclaimed by high officials who are obligated to be more careful—accurate and truthful, even. In his address attacking the ruling President Biden (there is no chance he actually read the opinion) declared that “for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” Wrong, Senility-Breath! Worse still was Justice Sotomayor, who issued what may be the most incompetent and irresponsible Supreme Court dissent in history, but then she might very well be the most incompetent judge ever to be confirmed to sit on the Court (Gee, thanks, Obama!).
Professor Turley explains
The Court found that there was absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions….Here the Court separated cases into actions taken in core areas of executive authority, official actions taken outside those core areas, and unofficial actions. Actions deemed personal or unofficial are not protected under this ruling.
It is certainly true that the case affords considerable immunity, including for conversations with subordinates. However, this did not spring suddenly from the head Zeus. As Chief Justice John Roberts lays out in the majority opinion, there has long been robust protections afforded to presidents. There are also a host of checks and balances on executive authority in our constitutional system. This includes judicial intervention to prevent violations of the law as well as impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors.
President Biden’s hyper-ventilated response is crushingly ironic. He was vice president when President Barack Obama killed an American citizen without a trial or a charge…
What was most glaring for many civil libertarians was President Biden’s portrayal of himself as a paragon of constitutional fealty. He declared that “I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers as I have for the last three-and-a-half years.”
That was also untrue. President Biden has racked up an impressive array of losses in federal courts where he was found to have violated the Constitution.
(Did you know Donald Trump lies all the time?)
As for Sotomayor’s fatuous tantrum in her dissent that,
“When [a President] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
…was wrong on the law, the content of the majority decision, and the facts. Turley, Bill Barr and many others pointed this out (so did the majority opinion), but never mind, a narrative was born to justify the next progressive push to pack the Supreme Court. Naturally Cottom fell into lockstep with her ideological pals.
(I still don’t think she read the opinion. If the Times had competent editors, that alone should have precluded her essay from being published.)
Turley’s quote that I used as a coda to the earlier post about the misrepresentation of the decision is worth repeating. He wrote
“In a perverted sense, Democrats are giving the public a powerful lesson in constitutional law. As Alexander Hamilton stated in The Federalist No. 78, judicial independence “is the best expedient which can be devised in any government to secure a steady, upright and impartial administration of the laws.” This is the moment that the Framers envisioned in creating the Court under Article III of the Constitution. It would be our bulwark even when politicians lose faith in our Constitution and seek to dictate justice for those who they dislike.”
The problem is that the public can’t learn such a lessor when “geniuses” like Tressie McMillan Cottom—and non-geniuses like Sotomayor and Biden— are deliberately or negligently misinforming them.
Ethics Alarms 
So is Sotomayor explaining to Biden what he should order Seal Team Six to do?
“So, ah, the supremes singer Sotto major said I could do that. No joke!”
Frankly, John, I’m surprised the Democrats are upset at all by the decision. There will never be another Republican president in any event. There will only be Democrat presidents, so what’s to worry about? Democrat presidents will never do anything wrong, never mind illegal. To use one of my favorite malapropisms, “It’s a mute point!”
Oops! Fred! Sheesh. Sorry. Need more caffeine.
It’s okay, Mel.
Thanks, Jim.
You can feed stupid any rhetorical bull shit that confirms to their bias but you can’t fix stupid.
The following idiot should be used as a progressive case study of stupid.
I referred this idiot to links to Turley, Dershowitz and Ethics Alarms for opinions on the ruling and stated that…
My point for referring you to these things to read and watch is to ring your proverbial bell because you went off the edge of reality. You’re one of the fools that didn’t actually read the ruling from the Supreme Court and went off the deep end swallowing the bull shit that was spewed against the court’s decision.
YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF AND RETRACT MUCH OF WHAT YOU WROTE IN YOU BLOG titled “‘I Literally Feel Like I Am Going To Vomit’: Another ‘Plessy Moment’ From Conservative Supreme Court As Trump Scores Major Victory”.
Then he replied to my email stating that he read the ruling which got this reply…
Gregory wrote, “I sat outside and read the ruling, for your information.”
Hogwash.
It’s crystal clear to me that, like so many anti-Trump activists, the only thing you read prior to posting your blog on the topic was opposition to the ruling that supported your extreme bias, this was a foolish move on your part. Anyone that actually read the ruling with any kind of open mind about the Supreme Court or the position of the President would never come to the absurd partisan conclusions that you did, you’re simply parroting disinformation propaganda talking points as if they’re fact.
It’s signature significant when someone writes absurdly extrapolated disinformation like:
“Donald Trump will never again face a trial” when the ruling does nothing to stop Donald Trump from being legally prosecuted.
“The Supreme Court prostrating themselves” for Trump when the Supreme Court did nothing of the sort, they defined guidelines for lower courts to use, it’s up to the lower courts to figure out how to use them.
“When the Court absolves an autocratic and fascist personality we have hit the bottom” when the ruling doesn’t absolve anyone.
None of those things you wrote are factual or truthful about the Supreme Court or the ruling, it’s pure disinformation propaganda regarding the Supreme Court and the ruling. You’re literally parroting disinformation propaganda without a shred of critical thinking and you should be ashamed of yourself.
With all the abusive weaponization of the justice system to “get Trump” that’s been going on it was inevitable that a Presidential immunity case would make its way to the Supreme Court because the extreme nature of the anti-Trump activist is such that they simply don’t know when to stop, they’ll bastardize absolutely anything in their efforts to “get Trump”. The political left’s abusive weaponization of the justice system against the former President has forced the Supreme Court to define a long established common sense precedent that the political left is intentionally trying to bastardize because their blind hate for Trump defies reason. I really don’t have much problem with disliking Trump, I dislike him too, but doing so with the mentality of the ends justifies the means and no matter what the consequences are is utterly moronic and truly anti-American. The rhetorical attacks on the Supreme Court because they didn’t rule the way anti-Trump activists wanted are immature, uncivil, anti-Constitution and anti-American and the disinformation propaganda tactics being used against the Supreme Court and some of their recent rulings are morally bankrupt.
Start using some genuine critical thinking.
P.S. When anti-Trump activists use the word fascist or racist in conjunction with Donald Trump they lose all credibility.
*Disinformation: is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.
It sounds like the disagreement about this Supreme Court ruling is rooted in a disagreement on whether or not the scope of a president’s duties is defined such that even with presidential immunity, he can still be held accountable for corruption and abuse of power. There is confusion and disagreement on how the president’s authority is defined.
I currently suspect that this ruling about presidential immunity will not prevent the president from being taken to court, but rather it will make future prosecution of presidents more tedious because they will have to establish whether or not the president’s actions exist under the aegis of immunity. Does that seem realistic?
I get that presidential immunity is supposed to allow presidents to take decisive action in critical situations without having to worry about people second-guessing them for it after the problem is solved, but what specifically are the limits on a president’s actions supposed to be?
Obviously voters are supposed to judge the president’s character, but what are the guardrails that a president cannot cross?