I have an essay on Slaughter and Cook coming out in an online symposium from Law & Liberty. I found Cook to be one of the Chief's most unusual blue plate specials. It was so out of character from the Chief's usual writing style. Moreover, it is so strange to see the Chief respond to Justice Thomas's dissent, all in service of deciding an unnecessary constitutional law question. As I noted before, I think something happened behind the scenes.
Here are a few miscellaneous points that didn't fit into my (already-too-long) essay.
First, Chief Justice Roberts casually announced a principle of judicial supremacy using novel terminology:
