justices like to right rules so that lower courts can apply them to cases and then many cases will be handled similarly and reasonably consistently, and people have a better understanding of how the courts decide cases so that they can better comply with the law.

so we have judicial "rules" such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt for a criminal conviction and by a preponderance of evidence in a civil case. or the "reasonable person" standard.

all well and good.

where i think gorsuch and the right-wing justices' line of hypotheticals went wrong is that another "rule" is that cases are generally decided narrowly if possible. for instance, if a plaintiff lacks standing, you stop there. the supreme court usually creates "rules" when there are many cases that the lower courts are deciding in an inconsistent fashion, leading to much confusion about how a law should be interpreted or how best to comply with it.

that's obviously not the case here. there's been *one* presidential criminal defendant in roughly a quarter millenium, so this is hardly the type of case that warrants getting into hypotheticals to establish a unifying "rule".


moreover, the supreme court already decided that nixon had to comply with a subpoena as his tapes didn't lie within the "outer perimeter" of his presidential duties. that is, we already *have* a rule, so the court first needs to explain why that rule isn't good enough to cover the present circumstances.

near as i can figure, it doesn't work for them because it doesn't allow them to create the dictatorship they are drooling for.

period.

I thought he was all about originalism. What does it matter what effect the rule will have in the future. All that should matter to him is whether or not the founders intended the constitution to provide immunity to a president in all circumstances. Clearly it does not. To be consistent with his so-called judicial viewpoint, all encompassing immunity should come only from the legislature or the people, by way of the constitution, not from a court interpretation.

the right wing believes in loyalty to the right wing, particularly as embodied by donnie and the republican party.

everything else is a b.s. excuse, a post facto rationalization.
they cycle through various justifications until they find one that lets them get away with deciding the way that want.

thou shalt not kill a fetus is an absolute; but a momentary fear when holding a gun, kill kill kill!
the state can control what a pregnant woman eats, what activities she does, what medical procedures she has, but they can't tell a business anything.

hypocrisy requires shame. it requires that it's possible to confront someone and they'd have to admit that yeah, i did something inconsistent with my philosophies. republicans never do that, because the "philosophies" they talk about are just pretexts. more propaganda to let them get away with ruling however they please.

*everything* about the constitution, its construction, the federalist papers, early statements from our founders, *everything* says they wanted to avoid a tyrant as the number one priority of the structure of our government. there's nothing to base the idea that the president is special or exempt in any way. they could not possibly have wanted a president to commit crimes, they could not possibly have wanted a president to be able to then pardon himself, they could not possibly have wanted a president to be above the law.

european settlers fled nations with such monarchical powers. they did not at all want to establish anything like that.

for a quarter of a millenium, this was readily understood by everyone. there's no philosophy that gets you there other than hey, we want to establish a dictatorship.

Your role is to interpret rule that were written long ago, to be specific, the Constitution of the United States.

But maybe that part hasn't been explained yet?