The Supremes:
The Supremes - You Keep Me Hangin' On
The Supremes were a singing group from the 60’s of which the most famous singer was Diana Ross. The clip on YouTube is their song: You Keep Me Hangin’ On.
It seemed appropriate to recall this song as we have been kept hangin’ on for the other Supremes, that is SCOTUS, to deliver some clarity on our rights as citizens. “Set me free, why don’tcha babe” and “You just keep me hangin’ on” sum up where we have been in this battle between a citizenry of serfs owing obeisance to the government vs the vision of a government that is there to exercise the will of the people. Now we finally have a bit of clarity in this regard, although the battle lines are just now being drawn, for sure.
Most recently we had some disappointment in the court’s refusal to come out forthrightly in favor of our rights of free speech in the Murthy v Missouri case. In reality, that case is not over and has simply been remanded back to a lower court. The litigants have vowed to fight on. It’s certainly however, not the resounding rebuke of governmental overreach that we had hoped for.
Still, perhaps yesterday’s wins make up for some of that disappointment. At least they open up the door to further litigation and reclaiming our rights in terms of medical mandates and so much more.
Here’s a quick rundown on these decisions and how I believe that they relate to the medical freedom movement.
There has been much hysteria on all sides regarding the Trump v United States case. That’s the one wherein SCOTUS weighed in on presidential immunity. We have never had anyone try to sue a President before and thus never had any legal precedent in the past. The left loves breaking new ground in this regard (think removing the ability to filibuster over judicial appointments; which change blew up in their faces when it came to Trump’s turn to appoint Supreme Court justices). So now we have a bit of clarity regarding presidential immunity.
Hysteria about SCOTUS saying that ‘Presidents are above the law’ is far from what actually happened. In fact, for the first time ever we now have guidance about what a President may and may not do. And at the end of the day this may have less to do with whether a President wrote the wrong descriptor in the memo box of a check he wrote and more to do with the type of Presidential overreach that we see out of our current White House.
The ruling breaks down Presidential acts into three buckets:
(1) Complete immunity for Acts that are covered as presidential responsibilities in the Constitution
(2) Presumptive immunity for other official acts
(3) No immunity for other acts, completely outside of presidential duties
So if a President is negotiating treaties, giving out pardons and directing the military, he is covered by the Constitution (bucket #1). If the President can be shown to be acting in official capacity but such acts, if criminalized, would NOT harm the authority and functioning of the presidency, then they might be deemed criminal (for instance, ordering the assassination of a political foe; bucket #2). Finally, the President has no immunity for any acts done outside of the scope of office duties … such as done as head of a party (bucket #3).
It is worth noting that as far as I can tell, this will have zero effect on deciding the criminality of writing “legal expenses” on a check stub or valuing Mar-a-Lago at an amount higher than what some judge thinks it should have been. Those are simply malicious prosecutions. I don’t see how those could be considered presidential duties considering the first is about a check from a personal checking account and in the second instance regarding a business loan … although no doubt an appeal based on this ruling likely will be tried.
In short, the left once again has opened up a can of worms in declaring presidents to be fair game for malicious prosecution. Now we know that a new administration can go after them much as they have gone after Trump. I’d love to take a look at some of Joe Biden’s check stubs, or Hunter’s, for that matter; or Hillary’s and so on. If there is to be a Trump presidency once again, his DOJ now has guidance.
But wait, there’s more.
On 6/27/24 SCOTUS ruled in the so-called Jarkezy case. In this case, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), one of the unelected branches of government, doled out penalties deemed to have violated Jarkezy’s Seventh Amendment right to ‘a trial by a jury of his peers.’ In other words, unelected bureaucrats got to both make the rules and then enforce them with no rights of due process left for the victim of these rules … until now. So actions against citizens must henceforth go to a real court and not be adjudicated by the unelected makers of the rules. Presumably this will impact other areas, including HHS rules or IRS rules. This could turn out to be a big win for those refusing to obey arbitrary rules from HHS, say perhaps shot mandates. You can see where this might be going.
And finally, SCOTUS just overturned what has been called the “Chevron” decision. In what can be thought of as a partner decision to Jarkezy, executive agencies were found to NOT have the right to come up with their own interpretations of laws, in the absence of courts weighing in. And in another decision, a citizen’s right to challenge an executive decision has been extended to 6 years out from the time it affects the citizen and not six years from the time the rule was written (which would have effectively given zero time to challenge in many cases).
All of this together seems like it might be the ‘lawyers’ full-employment’ decision given how many legal challenges can now be brought against the administrative state. But this is good for a change. And maybe (just dreaming here) our legislative bodies will be more specific about their intent rather than leaving so many doors open for interpretation by unelected bureaucrats, or now the courts.
Earth to the administrative state: “Get out my life, why don’tcha babe.”
In health,
DocofLastResort