The Daily Populous Thursday March 6th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by abovethelaw.com and submitted by Exciting_Teacher6258

They thought prostituting themselves wouldn’t mean losing control, but after accidentally falling in love they tragically learn they were just thought of as a whore by tacky oligarchs. No, it’s not the plot of Best Picture winner Anora — I mean, it is that too — but the very real human drama of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts showed up at the State of the Union last night expecting to take in another evening of sitting stonefaced while pretending it’s not weird that the judicial branch attends the president’s annual report to Congress.

Instead, he had the emperor’s robes ripped off him by a bumbling chief executive who doesn’t understand the conservative judicial pantomime:

“Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget it,” Trump says while shaking the hand of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts after the State of the Union. — Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T05:18:11.964Z

The first rule of Federalist Society Partisan Club is you do not talk about Federalist Society Partisan Club! The second rule is enjoy the Chick-fil-A. Except for Sam “Flagman” Alito, the conservative justices work hard to peddle the mythology that they aren’t die-hard Republicans reverse engineering contemporary GOP policy but conscientious jurists calling balls and strikes. They’ll make up reasons why Alexander Hamilton would’ve wanted them to give police total immunity or plead that you have to read their opinions and then not issue any opinions in increasingly consequential shadow docket cases — but they want you to know that they are always ALWAYS non-partisan.

In Trump v. United States — ending Trump’s federal criminal cases and inventing a new double-whammy to shield presidents from state cases — the Chief took great pains to characterize the ruling as entirely normal. Even though the argument in the case explicitly contemplated “using SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.” The opinion is laughably shoddy, but it plays the game.

Roberts and his buddies wanted Trump to win and they thought the electorate might balk if they found out some Russian agent lived in Trump’s pool locker stealing nuclear codes for four years or whatever lives in the Jack Smith report that Aileen Cannon and Pam Bondi do NOT want us to see. So he cobbled together this opinion to give his favored candidate a hand. Then he wrote an annual report scolding anyone who might scrutinize judicial opinions enough to suggest a judge might be a partisan hack.

Maybe Roberts believes his own mythology. It would be insane, but it’s possible. But whether his illusion was shattered or just his attempt to cover it up, Trump busted through it all when he said what everyone else already knew while patting the Chief on the chest.

“Thank you again,” he said, implying this is not the first time he’s thanked him. “Won’t forget it.”

As anyone who’s followed Trump’s career knows… he will absolutely forget it. Roberts might be coming to grips with all that right now.

See Also: The Amy Coney Barrett Clip That Will Have SCOTUS Followers Talking

anotherlab on March 6th, 2025 at 14:26 UTC »

Roberts is not an idiot, he knew a while back what his court was enabling.

--John_Yaya-- on March 6th, 2025 at 14:12 UTC »

Trump publicly thanking Roberts for his 'get out of jail free card' ruling and offering him quid pro quo ("I won't forget it") is one of the most sickening moments in US politics that I have ever witnessed (and I'm old)....and it was right out in the open because they don't even have to try to hide the corruption anymore.

My god.

NorthenFreeman on March 6th, 2025 at 13:59 UTC »

The SCOTUS is so corrupt, they don't even have to pretend anymore.