2:00 p.m. Water fountain 01/07/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether de Corrente

Dear overly patient readers, I have spent the day recovering from the food poisoning I had last night (which was just that, thankfully), and so this Water Cooler is mostly an open thread. However, I will be posting the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity. Also, last night, before I was taken down, I was planning to write a post discussing the Democratic Party and Biden’s decision-making process regarding whether to continue his campaign. If any of you have any facts (not hot takes) on this topic, please leave them in the comments. –lambert PS Also, Wednesday is a travel day for me, and I may or may not have connectivity issues, so I will try to make tomorrow’s Water Cooler extra long to make up for the coverage I missed, especially on Covid.

Bird song of the day

Common Loon, Schoolcraft, Michigan, USA. No, I’m not doing any editorial!

Hasty, poorly thought-out reactions:

Trump v. United States, Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (PDF) (Supreme Court of the United States).

An obvious starting point in the age of legal warfare, I would have thought?

“Judges find Trump has some immunity from prosecution” (Supreme Court Blog).

In a landmark decision, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that former presidents can never be sued for actions related to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they enjoy immunity for their official acts more generally.

The decision leaves open the possibility that the charges brought against former President Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith — alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election — could still stand because the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official acts.

– an investigation that, even if it leads to the conclusion that charges can be brought, will almost certainly further delay any trial in the case, which was originally scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, but is currently on hold.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, stressed that the president “is not above the law.” But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, countered that if a future president “abuses his official power for personal gain, the criminal law that we all must respect will be no safeguard.”

Regarding the various criminal cases pending against Trump:

“Interviews with Nixon” (Wikipedia). “In Part 3, Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations, such as against antiwar groups and others, if he decided “it’s in the best interest of the nation or something.” Nixon replied, “, “by definition. (24)(25)” (note that WikiPedia adds “by definition”). • Stoller comments:

And speaking of special prosecutors:

This seems to be a contradiction:

The bright side is that the executive branch now has the authority to seize all the powers that the Supreme Court just took away from the regulatory agencies by destroying the Chevron Doctrine. Surely they could create an OMB to do that, but with an order of magnitude two or three times larger?

UPDATE And then of course:

See “The 21st century executive branch is a criminogenic environment” in North Carolina.

Plant coordinates: Dear readers, feel free to contact me at lambert (UNDERSCORE) strether (DOT) corrente (AT) yahoo (DOT) com, for (a) information on how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) information on how to send me pictures of plants. Vegetables are good! Mushrooms, lichens and coral are considered honorary plants! If you want your nickname to appear as a credit, please put it at the beginning of your mail in parentheses : (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize using your initials. See previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Since Teton time:

To compensate, there are lots of plants!

Teton Time writes:

The children and I have a habit of collecting seeds from plants that we find during our hikes in the forests here. The pollinators love to use them and do so with enthusiasm.

We collected these seeds a few years ago. I have a test area to see what light and soil conditions etc these plants like. It is often very frustrating and many failures.

We harvested a few of these daisies from the wild I think three years ago. They are known to be hardy if they survive our attempts to remove them from the test beds. I couldn’t believe how beautiful they looked in the bed in front of our property. The thing about native plants is that once they grow, they are good. In fact, the work often consists of pulling them out when they are out of bounds.

After 20-30 years I should have this place in good shape. I am committed to growing all natural and native plants. That is my thing. It is a lot of work but it will be worth it one day. I have also included the peonies and poppies that are now blooming profusely. These are old plants that I have crossed. Their seeds are real. However, they are not native. But they both do very well here. Pollinators love wildflowers much more than these man-made things. Is there a lesson to be learned from this?

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