The Supreme Court decision today to reinstate Trump on every ballot: Expected. It's not any additional reason for me to level any additional accusations of illegitimacy (edit: nah nvm. I added an edit below). I've already got plenty, besides. But it is telling that the "state's rights" crowd is celebrating.

Trump's response speech to the ruling this morning wasn't much in the news, which is good, because, after thanking SCOTUS (guys I'm starting to worry about his ideas regarding separation of powers) via video message, he literally begs for presidential immunity. "There will be some things that, perhaps, don't work out so well, but, I don't wanna be prosecuted because I decided to do something that is very much for the good of the country and even for the good of the world" (direct quote). There is zero subtlety in his approach. I'm sure that the delay in the immunity ruling has emboldened him.

Sadly, the more I think about it, the more I can see at least 4 SCOTUS members carving out some realm of presidential immunity designed to be a very difficult hurdle for Jack Smith to clear, especially if he rushes the J6 case to trial before the election. That is my official projection. Absolute presidential immunity? No, but some wild-ass version of immunity intentionally made to give Trump the legal W at least through Jan. 20th, 2025. Something like "immune while performing official acts, or even while performing acts POTUS mistakenly thought were official". This has a bit to do with the ruling today, and more to do with explaining SCOTUS wanting to take up presidential immunity this late and so obviously delay his trial. Might explain why they're going to sit on it for a while, too, if it's gotta be finely polished into some tasty bullshit.

edit: After finally reading the 4 dissents (the 4 female justices), who still agreed with the overall ruling but not the justifications, it's pretty clear that this is Donald Trump's SCOTUS. After the GOP members in the early 2021 congress said "Trump's fate will be decided in the courts" to avoid voting for impeachment or conviction, 5 SCOTUS members (including Roberts!) have turned around and said "not only are we going to reinstate Trump on the ballot," (again, expected) "but we're going to wholesale invent a congressional process for insurrectionist disqualification that has no chance of ever being enacted against Trump." Basically for the hell of it. Even if Jack Smith finds him guilty of insurrection before the election, this guarantees no actual mechanism to remove Trump from the ballot. Further, this is even further away from any consistency at all with the "conservative" ideal of state-checked federal authorities than I had thought. Trump and the House GOP will simply try another insurrection, if he doesn't win, and SCOTUS by and large seems fine with it. And yeah, this came out of nowhere. SCOTUS isn't even in session. They released it on their website, because the majority wanted this ruling out there before Super Tuesday. Non-partisan "judging balls and strikes" my ass.