WTF SCOTUS | DMZ America Podcast | Ep 255

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are joined by legal expert Ricardo Aparicio to ask the question: What the heck is going on at the US Supreme Court?The nation’s highest court, once presumed to be nonpartisan, has become brazenly political. In Trump v. United States (July 1, 2024), the Court created absolute immunity for “core” constitutional powers by former presidents (pardons, vetoes, commanding the military, directing the Justice Department), and presumptive immunity for other official acts inside the “outer perimeter” of the job. Prosecutors can try to rebut that presumption, but they cannot use official-act evidence or the president’s motives to prove a crime. In 2026 the Court let the president fire independent-agency heads at will, wiping out a 1935 limit that Congress wrote into statutes. Dissenters said that hands the president a power “unknown even to the English Crown” and collapses the separation of powers.On the emergency docket it has also paused lower-court findings on mail-in voting and immigration raids, which critics say treats facts as optional.Might SCOTUS enable the cancellation or nullification of the midterm elections?Ricardo Aparicio, PhD, directs the Employee Engagement & Experience Council at The Conference Board. A former General Mills organization-effectiveness leader, he ran global engagement surveys covering more than 175,000 employees and helped the company post record scores. Earlier he marketed national brands at General Mills and Colgate-Palmolive. Born in Caracas, he lives in Minnesota and holds degrees from Cornell, Stanford, and the University of Minnesota.