Gastonia, NC "Technicality" is usually what people call a rule after they have decided they dislike what the rule is delaying. That is why I would not describe Monday's ruling that way. The appointments question goes to who was authorized to wield federal prosecutorial power in the first place, and that is not decorative procedure. … Continue reading When Judge Cannon dismissed the classified-documents indictment on appointments-clause grounds, was that a technicality that delays accountability, or a reminder that how a prosecutor is installed still matters in a republic?
Government
Should Cabinet officers and congressional Democrats who privately doubted Biden’s capacity in 2023–24 have raised the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in public, or would that have been an undemocratic coup against a nominated incumbent?
Myrtle Beach, SC Before anybody answers this, read Section 4, because the mechanism people are demanding does not work the way they think. Section 4 requires the Vice President. Not a majority of the Cabinet acting alone — the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers. Her signature comes first and without it … Continue reading Should Cabinet officers and congressional Democrats who privately doubted Biden’s capacity in 2023–24 have raised the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in public, or would that have been an undemocratic coup against a nominated incumbent?
Should voters treat staff and senior aides as the real locus of Biden-era decisions after 2022, or is that an unprovable conspiracy that excuses the electorate from judging the name on the ballot?
Gastonia, NC Two different claims are riding in this question and only one of them can be supported, so let me separate them before anybody argues. The first claim: senior staff run the daily operations of the White House. That is true and it has been true of every presidency since at least Eisenhower. A … Continue reading Should voters treat staff and senior aides as the real locus of Biden-era decisions after 2022, or is that an unprovable conspiracy that excuses the electorate from judging the name on the ballot?
After the June 27 debate, did the collapse of the “he’s fine” line reveal a failure of elite information control, or a failure of voters who had access to the same clips for three years and chose not to price them?
Gastonia, NC The second half of this question is not an argument. It is a claim about what the public believed, and the claim is false, and it is false by very large margins that were published every month for two years. Voters priced it. In February an AP survey had roughly three-quarters of American … Continue reading After the June 27 debate, did the collapse of the “he’s fine” line reveal a failure of elite information control, or a failure of voters who had access to the same clips for three years and chose not to price them?
After the Supreme Court’s immunity arguments and decision, should official-act protection be understood as a narrow shield for core executive functions, or as the only remaining brake on a cycle of tit-for-tat prosecutions of former presidents?
Myrtle Beach, SC The phrase "narrow shield" sounds reassuring because it lets everyone say two things at once: we are not creating a king, and we are still preserving protected space around the presidency. After watching 2021 through this summer, I think that formulation is too comfortable — but I also think the question, as … Continue reading After the Supreme Court’s immunity arguments and decision, should official-act protection be understood as a narrow shield for core executive functions, or as the only remaining brake on a cycle of tit-for-tat prosecutions of former presidents?
From the earliest unscripted Biden appearances in 2021, should the press and the party have treated evident verbal and physical decline as a governing issue, or was dismissing the clips the correct institutional response until a debate made denial impossible?
Gastonia, NC One housekeeping note before anything else, because it matters to the argument and I have already heard people get it wrong twice this week. "Cheap fake" is two weeks old. The press secretary used it in the middle of June, about three specific clips — the G7 skydiver, the Juneteenth event, the Morehouse … Continue reading From the earliest unscripted Biden appearances in 2021, should the press and the party have treated evident verbal and physical decline as a governing issue, or was dismissing the clips the correct institutional response until a debate made denial impossible?
Have the gag orders entered against a leading presidential candidate protected the integrity of pending trials, or have they created a new form of pretrial speech control aimed at the campaign itself?
Gastonia, NC A gag that can live on a quiet defendant is a trial-management tool. A gag that has to live on the opposition's presumptive nominee is something more complicated, because the mouth being restrained belongs to the campaign as well as to the defendant. That is the tension, and I want to work through … Continue reading Have the gag orders entered against a leading presidential candidate protected the integrity of pending trials, or have they created a new form of pretrial speech control aimed at the campaign itself?
When the White House kept press availability tightly limited, declined routine interviews, and ran a staff-managed schedule, was that ordinary modern presidency — or evidence that the public was no longer seeing the person who actually held the office?
Myrtle Beach, SC Every White House manages a calendar. The question is whether this one managed it past the point where the public could still see the officer, and the numbers are the place to start rather than the vibe. In three years this president has given fewer than a hundred interviews. Each of the … Continue reading When the White House kept press availability tightly limited, declined routine interviews, and ran a staff-managed schedule, was that ordinary modern presidency — or evidence that the public was no longer seeing the person who actually held the office?
Did Special Counsel Hur’s description of Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory — while declining to charge — confirm a two-track standard for cognitive fitness in classified-documents cases, or was it an irrelevant aside in a declination memo?
Gastonia, NC An aside is a sentence you can cut without changing anything. This one cannot be cut, and the reason has nothing to do with the memo. Four days ago, on the evening the report came out, the President walked into the briefing room to rebut it. He said his memory was fine. He … Continue reading Did Special Counsel Hur’s description of Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory — while declining to charge — confirm a two-track standard for cognitive fitness in classified-documents cases, or was it an irrelevant aside in a declination memo?
Should federal courts intervene earlier to police venue in the documents and January 6 prosecutions, or is forum-shopping an accepted feature of American criminal practice that has only become a scandal because of the caption?
Myrtle Beach, SC Forum-shopping is a feature of ordinary criminal practice the way rain is a feature of a beach vacation. Everybody knows it happens, and that does not mean a hurricane is just weather. But before I make that argument I have to deal with something inconvenient, because I spent a week with the … Continue reading Should federal courts intervene earlier to police venue in the documents and January 6 prosecutions, or is forum-shopping an accepted feature of American criminal practice that has only become a scandal because of the caption?
