"Trump vs US" Supreme Court Case on Executive Immunity. Maybe a helpful visual?

Helps me to put a picture of what I see as the result of the Executive Immunity case recently decided by the Supreme Court (case decision HERE).

Here is the succinct summary of what the Supreme Court held:

Below are a couple of images I created to give students (or others interested in the issue) a nominal starting point to understand the result. I make no claims it is a perfect representation.  I think, for the most part, the logic of what is "held" written above is shown in the two images below.

The first one describes Executive authority BEFORE the case cited above.  Presidential authority is defined in Article 2 of the Constitution. The "fuzzy perimeters" of that power have been molded by historical events but have been expansionary in history and dictated by events (civil war, WW 1 and 2, 9/11, to name a few).

The second image below represents what I think happens with Executive Authority going forward.  It HAS to happen, right?

Executive power increases (White area).  The fuzzy "outer perimeter" (Roberts words) of what is acceptable within the Executive branch increases (Brownish area) and the level of criminality that an Executive can be held responsible for decreases (Red area).

It is this brownish area I think Chief Justice Roberts addresses with "And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.".  Not defined before in any Supreme Court case and the contours of it remain "fuzzy" BUT no question is an enlargement of Executive Branch permissible acts or actions.

ACT Reading Test Stratgies. My nominal suggestions.

I do a little ACT tutoring.  I have watched just about every YouTube video on every ACT subject tested.  Everyone has their own take on how to approach each test, which leads to a wide variety of opinions.  

The Reading Test (and Science test), as opposed to the English and Math tests, seems to have fewer moving parts overall.  The English test has a million grammar and sentence structure rules and Math, well, you know...

Professional tutors (ain't me!) are split on how to approach the reading test.  Some say go to questions first, and some say read the passage first. Some say read and annotate in the margins first, some say that takes too much time.  What to do?

I honestly don't know of a specific "go-to" strategy.  Below I will post my suggestions. I think they are useful if one is not the greatest/fastest reader in the world.  I think these provide some structure on how to approach the reading passages.  

Use at your own risk!

Additional Tips:

Read the source information at the very beginning of the passage. Depending on the topic, there can be useful information about the passage overall. It is good to know where it is going to take you before you start skimming the questions.

Don't read in any detail the answer choices that are wordy overall.  A question that has just one or two-word answer choices is worth a skim just to get the overall feel for the question.

Yes, this prep work takes valuable time. I think the time you save in having the questions mapped out will be more than worth the upfront investment of time.  Plus, it may reduce some of the reading you have to do overall.  

ACT does not care about how you arrive at an answer, nor do they care if you liked the passage or not!

"The History of the Chevron Doctrine"--things you may not have known...

Two cases regarding the so-called "Chevron Doctrine", Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, were argued this week at the Supreme Court. 

This very short article helps explain the issues in the original case that established the doctrine.

In short, when a statute's (law) verbiage comes into question, a court uses a "2-step" process to decide the case:

The "two-step" refers to the two stages of the review process:

1. Determine whether Congress expressed clear intent on the specific issue at hand in the statute. If it did, the court simply applies that meaning. If it’s not clear, go on to Step 2.
2. If the statute is ambiguous, then the court defers to the agency's interpretation if it is "based on a permissible construction of the statute." This is the "Chevron deference" stage.

 Source: FindLaw

One side says the doctrine is necessary so government agencies, that employ professionals with expertise Congress does not have, can use existing statutory language to respond to challenges that are not explicit (but implied or through precedent) in the statute. 

The other side says it gives government agencies too much power to interpret statutes beyond what is in the text of those statutes. The meanings of statutes should be interpreted by the judicial branch, not "unelected bureaucrats" or the Executive branch.