Cartoons Saturday!

After Supreme irony in tariffs ruling, plus film and music picks.

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Bramhall:

Trump in Der Furor mode yesterday: “I am allowed to cut off any and all trade…I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country, I’m even allowed to impose a foreign country- destroying embargo…I can do anything I want to do to them…I’m allowed to destroy the country, but I can’t charge a little fee?”

One of most sobering commentaries, by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

We say the Court “struck down” these tariffs. But that wording is inadequate and misleading. These tariffs were always transparently illegal. Saying the actions were “struck down” suggests at least a notional logic which the Court disagreed with, or perhaps one form of standing practice and constitutional understanding away from which the Court decided to chart another course. Neither is remotely the case. There’s no ambiguity in the law in question. Trump assumed a unilateral power to “find” a national emergency and then used this (transparently fraudulent) national emergency to exercise powers the law in question doesn’t even delegate. It is, among other things, an example of the central tenet of current conservative jurisprudence: to determine what law or constitution would require if words had no meaning….

It’s tempting to see this decision as some big win. And it is a win to the extent that it’s better that a rogue president be barred from illegal acts than permitted to continue them. But it’s a mistake to imagine that the Court is any less corrupt on the evidence of this decision.

This is a case where the legal merits of the President’s action were just too transparently bogus even for this Court to manage and — critically — his actions and the theories undergirding his claims to the power were, for the corrupt majority, inconvenient. The architect of the current Court — the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo — was behind the litigation that undid the tariffs. That tells you all you need to know. In this case Trump’s claim to power was neither in the interests of the Republican Party — the Court’s chief jurisprudential interest — nor any of their anti-constitutional doctrines. So of course they tossed it out. This may sound ungenerous. It’s simple reality.

Indeed, today’s decision is actually an indictment of the Court. These tariffs have been in effect for almost a year. They have upended whole sectors of the U.S. and global economies. The fact that a president can illegally exercise such powers for so long and with such great consequences for almost a year means we’re not living in a functional constitutional system. If the Constitution allows untrammeled and dictatorial powers for almost one year, massive dictator mulligans, then there is no Constitution.

Axios: “Last year, the court issued 26 rulings on challenges to Trump policies and actions — and sided with the administration 21 times, almost entirely on the "shadow docket," where justices don't have to explain their reasoning, the Financial Times' Brooke Masters notes.”

NY Times:

Months before Renee Good’s killing at the hands of an immigration agent in Minneapolis set off nationwide protests, a federal officer shot and killed another American citizen in his car in South Texas, according to internal reports made public this week.

The victim, Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was shot multiple times in South Padre Island by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer after he did not follow commands to exit his vehicle, according to internal ICE documents reviewed by The New York Times.

And meanwhile, more Trump yesterday: "So I decided to go to Iraq. I flew to Iraq. I was extremely brave. In fact, so brave I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor. I said to my people, am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?"

Music/Film

New doc just out on the very troubled life of Billy Preston, from aiding the Beatles to solo hit records and beyond. Trailer:

When he “saved” the “Let It Be” album:

Nils Lofgren joins his Boss with an anti-ICE anthem:

From Tunes to Toons

Barry Blitt:

Greenberg:

Schwartz:

Granlund:

Jim Benton:

Photo Finish

From my camera to you, Brancusi’s “Seal,” Guggenheim, NYC