There in the darkness, there was clarity about the Supreme Court

Biden calls out Stefanik at event in Syracuse to celebrate upstate jobs

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The day before I'd flown 11 hours across six time zones, so I wasn't surprised to be wide awake at 3:30 a.m. It was also convenient.

The oral arguments in the case before the Supreme Court - Do presidents have absolute immunity for their actions? - was scheduled for 4 a.m. my time and I wasn't going to miss it.

My fascination with the Supreme Court, awe really, goes back to Jeffrey Toobin's book The Nine 15 years ago. The court was the ultimate backstop when it came to enforcing the rule of law, the final arbiter between right and wrong. They were men and women to be admired as they wrestled with the issues of the day that transcended politics.

But after two and a half hours of arguments, the predawn darkness around me not only seemed appropriate, I wondered if it would ever lift.

My interpretation of the law is a simple application of common sense. We are obliged to follow the law or face the consequences. It is not meant to be bent and twisted into something beyond that basic understanding.

Right and wrong should be white and black.

So in its simplest form, the argument before the Supreme Court was open and shut.

The decision had to be, 9-0.

Because the understanding of that basic concept is the basis for our democracy.

But that's not what I was hearing from the Supreme Court in the darkness Thursday morning.

They turned white into black, then all sorts of gray that was unrecognizable and made the way most of us live our lives unrecognizable.

Do the right thing.

Follow the rules or suffer the consequences.

The court was engaging in hypotheticals that presidents might need certain protections for the actions they took while in office, including the mind-blowing assertion that assassinating a political rival might be protected; that official acts and personal acts could somehow be differentiated so that breaking the the law in an official capacity was somehow just and right.

The argument is insane.

It was the Court's newest jurist who showed the most common sense.

"If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes, I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wondered aloud.

Every single justice should have immediately concurred with a pronounced, "Hallelujah! Finally, the voice of reason."

That's not what I heard as I sat alone in the darkness.

Since then, I've searched for an explanation of what the Court could possibly be talking about.

Was I that stupid or were they that blind?

My belief that the justices were above the political fray, that they were honorable men and women of the law was being tested. While they may be calling balls and strikes now, several held key political appointments in presidential administrations.

We are all the sum of our life's experiences and when I thought of it that way, my conclusion was inescapable.

The justices' past experience as witnesses to political warfare - including several with their own confirmation hearings - had given them insights that colored their interpretation of right and wrong.

Justice John Roberts as a top aide to the attorney general and Justice Samuel Alito had top positions in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration while Justice Neil Gorusch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh worked for President George W. Bush.

Add in the sexual harassment allegations of Justice Clarence Thomas, the sexual assault charges against Kavanaugh and the ethical violations of Thomas, Alito and Gorusch and there is a case to be made that they are sympathetic to the accusations against the former president because they believe they have been treated unfairly as well.

So perhaps their views are colored by seeing presidents and their administrations challenged and attacked with what they believed were abuses of the political system.

If that is the case, the conclusion is unavoidable.

Supreme Court justices are politicians, too, and are just protecting their own.

They do not deserve to be addressed as "Honorable."

The robes hide their own ethical failures.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who spent most of her career at Notre Dame Law School, was the only conservative concerned with the matter at hand regarding Donald Trump breaking the law.

"There are many other people who are subject to impeachment, including the nine sitting on this bench," Barrett said during the hearing. "So why is the president different when the Impeachment Clause doesn't say so?"

Why indeed?

More importantly, why didn't the other conservatives see the simplicity of this?

Right vs. wrong.

Because they are politicians is the inescapable conclusion.

For two and half hours Thrusday, they debated, searched and probed for an acceptable middle ground for breaking the law.

Imagine that.

At the Supreme Court.

Just a day earlier, I had the window seat as we approached our landing at Honolulu International Airport. Out of the left side of the plane was Ford Island, Pearl Harbor and the clear white monument sitting over where USS Arizona lies.

I thought about that day in 1941.

About the hundreds still entombed in the Arizona and the horrors that followed as our country, our citizens fought wars against dictators who believed they were also above the law.

The argument over presidential immunity is simple.

We all need to follow the rules of our country or suffer the consequences.

Men and women have died fighting for that cause.

The fact the Supreme Court does not see that should frighten us to our very core.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.

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Biden in Syracuse

President Joe Biden was in Syracuse last week to celebrate a new microchip plant that was spawned by his CHIPS Act.

Biden took the opportunity to call out Rep. Elise Stefanik for voting against the CHIPS Act.

"They oppose the CHIPS and Science Act that’s powering this growth today. In fact, your congressman Brandon Williams called it corporate welfare, and Elise Stefanik, a few counties over, she said the CHIPS Act was Washington at its worst end quote. I guess they’re not going to be here today to celebrate.”

Stefanik responded on social media by calling Biden "the worst President of the United States in modern memory."

Stefanik statement

Rep. Elise Stefanik finally gave the Adirondack Daily Enterprise a statement on her Ukraine vote late last week.

Her printed statement read, she's "supported Ukraine’s right to defend itself with lethal aid, including weapons, munitions and training” for two years but that she has now changed her mind.

“However, I cannot support billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars of non-lethal aid while Joe Biden continues his failure to address his crisis at our southern border,” the statement read.

Her statement seems to ignore the fact a Republican senator had hammered out a border deal that provided what Republicans wanted only for it to be killed in the House of Representatives without a vote.

The elephant in the room is that Donald Trump did not want the bill passed because it's an issue that gets him votes.

So Elise Stefanik did his bidding.

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Prison closures

During state budget negotiations earlier this month, the Albany Times Union reported that the state might close up to five prisons around the state and that Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Fort Ann was a contender for closing.

Great Meadow is one of the state's largest prisons with over 1,600 inmates. Prison guard salaries may be among the highest in the county and would be a significant blow to the local economy.

While no one wants good paying jobs leave, the reality is that the state's prison population continues to decline. Six prisons around the state were closed in 2022 and 24 prisons have been closed since 2011, including Mount McGregor in Wilton.

Nothing is final or official yet.

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Mark you calendars

Battenkill Books in Cambridge will be hosting a discussion between former Schenectady Gazette Editor Judy Patrick and myself about my new book The Last American Editor, Vol. 2 as well as general discussion about journalism, newspapers and the play I am developing for the Adirondack Theater Festival.

The event will be held Thursday, May 16 at 6 p.m. at Battenkill Books.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.