Reflections/Jonathan Gramling

Jonathan Gramling

Blame the Supreme Court

If you are looking for someone to blame for the impending disruptions to the U.S. midterm elections — I can almost guarantee that it will be anything but a “normal” election — blame the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Trump v. United States on July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that “former and sitting presidents have absolute criminal immunity for core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial or private acts.”

What were they thinking?

And then on August 24th, the Supreme Court issued a shadow ruling — meaning there was no public discussion of voting by members of the Supreme Court, only an unsigned ruling — that essentially allows the U.S. Postal Service to “mess” with mail-in voting.

CBS News reported that “The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned decision. "On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it."

So, in essence — and please write in and tell me that I am wrong — the Trump administration can screw around with mail-in voting any which way it wants — in this case in 23 Democratically-led states — until the Supreme Court decides that the states have been harmed, probably after Election Day.

In September, the Supreme Court, probably horrified by what their delay allowed, blocked Trump’s restrictions on mail-in voting. Thank God!

But even if Trump doesn’t interfere in this way, he is blatantly breaking the law in trying to tilt the election in MAGA’s direction.

MAGA itself, a PAC, appears to be under Trump’s control — it seems he attends a MAGA meeting every other week according to his official presidential guidance — even though it is banned by federal election controls.

According to The New York Times, “President Trump has called the $400 million super PAC run by his political advisers ‘my money that I control.’” This is clearly illegal. But the Federal Election Commission can’t investigate it or make an advisory ruling or do anything. Why? Because Trump hasn’t nominated any people to the Federal Elections Commission and so they only have two members — Democratically appointed members — and they need at least four to take action. By not appointing people to the FEC, Trump has ensured that no one can do anything about his violation of campaign finance laws and beyond. Between the Supreme Court immunity ruling and Trump’s lack of action in appointing people, Trump and others can flagrantly violate U.S. law and no one is in place to call him on it.

And Trump has spent at least $11.6 million of tax-payer money on dubious “public service ads” that promoted him and his agenda, which included defeating Communists and Socialists in the midterm election, a thinly-veiled reference to Democrats. The outrage against these ads — which were clearly political and partisan — was from Republicans and Democrats. And so Trump said that all future ads would be paid by MAGA, Inc.

Now how could he guarantee that unless he controlled MAGA, Inc. illegally. But thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump doesn’t have to worry about that. And of course, there was nothing mentioned about MAGA, Inc. reimbursing the federal government that had already been spent illegally by the U.S. Government.

And how about Trump’s daily trips across the United States appearing at the rallies for Republican candidates? These rallies are purely political and serve no public purpose. But I don’t see anything about the Republican National Committee or even MAGA, Inc. reimbursing the federal government for the cost of these purely partisan trips.

What was the U.S. Supreme Court thinking when they ruled in Trump v. United States that the President of the United States has, in essence, immunity for every action he takes when he is president? Did they even know the character of Donald Trump?

Certainly three of them, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump nominated, would have had talks with Trump and understood the price of total allegiance that Trump expected in return. According to Time Magazine, Trump recently said. “Trump expressed deep disappointment, explaining, "They voted against me too often. I was very — I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often.”

Donald Trump is a man-child who throws tantrums and calls people names whenever they don’t do what he wants. Donald Trump is a self-centered narcissist who doesn’t have an empathetic or moral fiber in his body. He has caused the deaths of thousand of people by starting the Iran War and doomed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in Africa and other places to early deaths by cutting off USAID and other medical grants.

And yet, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Trump immunity for all of these actions and more to come. Are the Supreme Court justices so cut off from reality that they couldn’t envision the death, destruction and greed to come? Are they crazy or just unqualified to sit on the highest court of America?It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.