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I overslept and then had to hop into my car for my first radiation treatment. So I'm a little late to the news. On the bright side, I'm now 1/28th of the way to a healthy prostate.

And now the news. The big news, obviously, is that the Supreme Court finally roused itself to rule on Donald Trump's immunity from federal prosecution for his actions related to January 6. To recap things, there are four charges against Trump:

  1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
  2. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
  3. Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.
  4. Conspiracy against rights.

#2 and #3 are based on violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which the Court already tossed out on Friday when it ruled that Sarbanes-Oxley couldn't be used to prosecute the January 6 rioters.

#1 and #4 are more complicated. The Court ruled that some aspects of the indictment are subject to immunity and some aren't:

  • Trump is absolutely immune against charges of talking with the Attorney General or other members of the Justice Department.
  • Trump is probably immune against charges of trying to pressure the vice president.
  • He is also probably immune against charges related to tweets or other forms of public communication.
  • Trump might be immune against charges of conspiring with state officials to change the official vote count.

However, because this is a unique case, the Court didn't rule on the questionable immunity charges. Instead, it remanded them back to the district court for further fact finding and consideration. After that, of course, it will get appealed to a circuit court and then finally land back in the lap of the Supreme Court.

This will delay things a very long time. Long enough that if Trump wins in November he'll have ample time to kill the prosecution entirely. If he doesn't, though, how are these things likely to go?

My read of the opinion is that the only part of the indictment that will remain standing is the charge of conspiring to influence state legislatures to investigate election fraud. The three liberals on the Court are on board with that, and so is Amy Coney Barrett:

The indictment alleges that the President “asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing” about election fraud claims. The President has no authority over state legislatures or their leadership, so it is hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power.

I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of the other conservative justices agreed with this. That would leave prosecutor Jack Smith with a very stripped down case aimed solely at Trump's actions with regard to state officials. That might be enough and it might not.

For some time, I've been watching videos of Joe Biden to see for myself if he was showing signs of cognitive decline. Time after time, the answer was no. He had obvious physical limitations, but mentally he had no problems. What's more, all indications suggested he was carrying out the duties of the presidency just fine.

That makes his performance last Thursday genuinely puzzling. Nevertheless, it was what it was: the performance of a man who was halting, confused, lost, and sometimes just plain incoherent. The evidence of cognitive decay was so obvious that even Biden partisans couldn't spin it away.

Sadly, this 90-minute look into Biden's mental state—temporary or not—makes it clear that he shouldn't be president any longer. It's too risky. He should resign the office immediately and turn the reins over to Kamala Harris.

And what then should Harris do? This is purely a question of politics. I can hardly believe I'm about to say this, but my suggestion would be to talk a moderate Republican—a Rob Portman type—into becoming her vice president and running mate and creating a bipartisan front against Donald Trump. This would shake things up enough to give her a chance of beating Trump in November.

This kind of suggestion is a horrible cliche, but it has possibilities. It's not the most important thing, though. What's important is that the president can't be a person who's obviously not all there—even if that's true only occasionally. Biden needs to leave office with dignity while he still can.