"The Roberts supermajority has taken a radical course where the judiciary is increasingly the final arbiter not just on the law but on the facts, the interpretation of those facts, the application of those facts in given situations, and the technical, scientific, and professional implications of those facts in the real world.
"This Supreme Court has created the conditions for a man like Trump to rule like a king—or more to the point, like a dictator. As lawyer and scholar Neal Katyal, who has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court, put it this morning on MSNBC, 'This decision today is unfortunately a blueprint for how to end the rule of law.'”
“The Supreme Court just fundamentally altered the structure and nature of democracy in America. It awards the president the measure of power and immunity that is much, much closer to a king or emperor than an elected official.”
“Welp, that’s all folks. The President is immune from prosecution so long as he says he committed crimes as part of his ‘official’ duties, So ends the part of the American experience where our leaders were bound by the rule of law. Thanks for playing.”
“'It’s good to be the king,' to quote Mel Brooks from History of the World: Part 1. He was parodying King Louis XVI, the last king of France. Donald Trump can now repeat the line if he wins another election and begins his reign as the first king of white Christian nationalist America."
"Monarchists around the world celebrated today as the U.S. abandoned its two-century fling with democracy thanks to a Supreme Court decision excusing American chief executives from any accountability.
Noisy festivities broke out in such refuges for royals as London’s Buckingham Palace, where an exuberant King Charles III said, 'I knew they’d come to their senses if we just waited long enough.'”
"In both substance and timing, the MAGA Supreme Court put its thumb on the scale for Donald Trump in a dangerously unprecedented manner.
By waiting until late June to release an opinion in a case heard in April, it’s clear the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts’ leadership is trying to rig the election for Trump."
"Today the United States Supreme Court overthrew the central premise of American democracy: that no one is above the law. …
Today’s decision destroyed the principle on which this nation was founded, that all people in the United States of America should be equal before the law.
The name of the case is 'Donald J. Trump v. United States.'”
"Both the timing and scope of the decision highlight that the conservative majority went to great lengths to build a protective edifice not just around the president as such but also around Trump in particular."
"Justice Sotomayor turned directly towards Chief Justice Roberts as she spoke. In normal conversation, when someone turns directly toward you as they speak, it is common to look back at them, perhaps even nod or smile to make them feel included and acknowledged. But Roberts never so much as looked back at her, his fellow Justice. I guess he saw no need."
I’ve not seen any #monarch#butterflies so far this spring but they’ve obviously been here. Spotted these two monarch #caterpillars yesterday on the one milkweed in my front #garden, a survivor that has regrown after dying back to the soil following our big winter freeze. Hope these make it to adulthood, the ones I saw last year disappeared before pupating.