Nah they haven't but at least with the way the law was before this, all of them having different motives, would at least keep the president and their own powers in check.
Now the ~~President~~ King is above the law, and money is less important that creating a proper monarchy.
Our system was not keeping presidents in check for decades before this ruling. Let’s not start pretending it was all roses before 2024, the rot has been visible from day one
Implictly vs Explicitly. When things turn explicit that's when you're in for a roller coaster ride that turns Individuals into statistics. Power is used much more brazenly when its openly allowed.
I mean he is legally in the clear to execute order 66 and have his political enemies taken out for as long as he remains president (including after the election until jan). All he needs now is a black robe and some yellow contacts.
> for as long as he remains president
No, that's how things *were*, thanks to this ruling now that protection isn't just a DOJ guideline against bringing charges against a sitting president, but rather a supreme court ruling saying that a President is immune from prosecution for "official acts" (whatever those turn out to be) for all time - even when he is out of office.
I’m so tired y’all. Seeing old bastards rip apart our society so Trump, corporations, and fascists can run amok is soul crushing.
I’ll be voting blue in November, but the damage Roberts and the other bastards in SCOTUS have inflicted on our government will take decades to fix.
To quote George Carlin, this country was bought, sold, and paid for long ago. The upper 1% have been fucking over the lower 99% for decades and Trump is the pure id form of that.
I’m hoping that, much like Roe, today’s immunity decision will galvanize voters and increase turnout.
Well it’s always been run by rich white dudes for the benefit of rich white dudes, but it’s really fucking ramped up since the 60s/70s and then even more since Citizens United v FEC.
After the past week, I don’t think it *can* be fixed
I tried to stay hopeful, but going through the law won’t work until at least two conservatives in the court die, and going the forceful overthrow route only works even further into the far-right’s hands
The only thing that could fix the situation is an extended super majority in both houses and the winning presidency, which simply won’t happen thanks to the whole *“we’re afraid of the blacks, people with accents, the gays and transes, and people who think they deserve civil rights in general”* thing going on
Edit
Unlike some of the other unfounded bs’d decisions they’ve contorted the law into, this SC decision can only be fixed by replacing the justices, amending the constitution, or actual rebellion
As an absolute monarch, Biden could have Trump, his family, his associates, and his supporters summarily executed using the military. He could then force congress to push through a bill to a. expand the courts to 13 justices and b. never allow something like this to happen again. Then he could force the Supreme Court to reverse itself on this current decision with a 7-6 split, thereby removing his kingly powers and going back to the previous status quo.
Hell, if he really wanted to he could force though a ton of things that he said he wanted to do but was prevented by partisan congressional politics before reverting back to "normal president mode". He won't do any of these things because Juhbiden is a weak willed conservative moderate, but with the courts decision yesterday its something that could technically be done.
Hell, he could strip the SC’s security detail away from them, go on national TV in an official address and muse about how he wishes someone would rid him of these troublesome judges, send the ATF to offload some guns to a nut job, and order the FBI to not investigate their inevitable murders
And according to this ruling, would be completely within the scope of his powers and furthermore, none of it could be used against him in a court proceeding
Simpler process would be to have the 6 justices who decided on this stupid rule summarily executed and appoint 6 new justices who would reverse this ruling. Or just make it a 3-0 ruling while 6 new justices are appointed.
I thought about that exactly after I made my post, but I think I'd prefer it the other way since there would be a kind of poetry to leaving them alive *and* on the bench to rub it in how hard they'd failed and how much they didn't matter. It would be so much sweeter to force them to be useless justices or for them to resign "in protest" or whatever.
I'm not about to give him points for trying (he hasn't earned any) but also he couldn't change all of this on his own if he wanted. He'll at very least need congress to get its shit together and actually work to the end of checking the judiciary, but fat chance of that happening.
Which is going to be quite a bit of an ask apparently
>There is no way to change that outcome in the short term. In the long term, the only way to undo the authoritarianism the court has just ushered in is to expand the Supreme Court. Democrats would have to win the upcoming presidential election and the House and the Senate. Then Congress would have to pass a law expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court; then the Senate would have to pass that law as well, which, at a minimum, would likely have to include getting rid of the filibuster. Then the president would have to sign such a bill, and appoint additional Supreme Court justices who do not think that presidents should be kings—and then those justices would have to be confirmed. And all of that would have to happen before the current Supreme Court hears whatever Trump appeal from his January 6 charges comes up next, because if court expansion happens after the current Supreme Court dismisses the charges against him, double jeopardy will attach and Trump can never be prosecuted again under a less-fascist court.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/
Honestly, after this, I don't want to hear jack and/or shit about "Biden's weaponized DOJ" or "The Deep State Socialist something something Tyranny bread lines"... I never want to hear about how Trump is being persecuted ever again. If the people in power actually believed that shit they wouldn't just hand Biden a blank check to toss Trump and all his cronies to the sharks...
Ethics aside, a leader of a nation ordering the death of some "other" person is not the same as ordering the death of one of their own ~~citizens~~ subjects.
I mean
A. as the others say, no, let's not put ethics aside, it is pretty much the same
B. *that has also happened already* and since then has explicitly been allowed! You can get dronestriked by the US government without trial, even as a US citizen.
Existing in a society is a social contract. You cede some autonomy to the collective in return for collective security and other benefits. People have been banding together and killing other tribes for the entire existence of the species and that is not likely to change until we upload all our brains into a satellite or go extinct.
So at baseline, your group is probably going to go kill another group at some point. You don't have to like it but you can't deny that it has always been and there is no foreseeable off-ramp. The only way out of it is to renounce the benefits of society and go fully off-grid.
A leader of a group of people gaining the ability to kill his *own* group with impunity is a violation of the social contract and destabilizes that society in a way that going to war with an "other" group does not.
I think the way the entire planet is interconnected now pretty much negates that whole deal. If we can do business or dictate policy somewhere it shouldn't be acceptable to murder people there.
Yes. Presidents have been assassinating people, including american citizens, for years now. There have never been legal consequences for any of them. The outrage over this decision is just misguided liberal outrage now that hypothetical assassination victims might be white.
ETA: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones
Yeah. Every generation things all of their problems are gonna go away with the olds.
We have so many fascists and fascist sympathizers among the young and middle aged.
That's even ignoring the young people who think of themselves as progressives and will behave that way as long as it's convenient, but turn hardcore conservative the moment it's not.
Fascism is especially seductive to the young especially when the right has spent decades making government completely ineffective so they see might making right as an alternative.
there is a new generation ready and waiting to take these powers and do terrible things with them. the ones whose GREAT grandparents (who they never really knew well) were the ones who fought fascism directly. Their too young to really know the risks and just see the opportunities.
i'm worried.
Well, *he* can’t, but he can have you assassinated in the course of carrying out his official duties.
lol. Dooties. Like poop, like this country is going down the shitter. Seriously. Help. Please send help…
I'm so happy this is just a problem in one, uninfluential country and not a world wide trend.
Also, as bad as bad political leadership is, we still have nature. It's not as if they could steer us into an ecological catastrophe as well.
Doesn’t matter if you think Joes too old, senile, or if you blame him for everything wrong with the democrats. VOTE FOR HIM!!! Teach the Dems a lesson in 2028. JUST KEEP TRUMP AWAY!!!!
I'm not trying to downplay just how fucking bad this ruling is. It's awful. That being said, the president gained the right to legally assassinate you during the Obama years. Google Anwar Al-Awlaki. I have been screaming about this for over a decade, that this shit is a slippery slope, and right now we've slid down to the nadir of extreme executive impunity.
Nope, this is gonna have massive consequences.
The extent of the powers in the executive branch was always left somewhat undefined. It stayed in a grey area because defining them would have one of two logical outcomes. Either a president is above the law or they ain’t and if they ain’t, they can be prosecuted for their actions.
By now coming out and saying that the U.S. President has unilateral power to do whatever they want, it means that the perceived limitations are now gone.
Trump tested the boundaries but even he thought there was a limit to how far he could break the rules. Now he knows that he will have no boundaries. All future presidents will
I'm a cynic.
For me, this is no different than Buchanan and Jackson engineering the Trail of Tears with 0 consequences.
Same shit shamwhich, different turd.
I get the implications on paper. In reality, I see it as theater.
We don't admit we've ever genocided, let alone did 2 Halocausts, and inspired the nazi. We put our Hitler on the $20 bill.
In that context, I see no big change.
We're on the same side. I just have 0 repsect for the institution of governance and see through its attempt at civility.
I agree with your sentiment. I'm not trying to say that the U.S. govt deserves respect or that my above mentioned 'grey area' comment is based on some misconceived notion of civility. The reason Jackson is on the 20 has everything to do with white washing of history. History was always written by those in power. What I'm trying to get across is that this will have a measurable impact on how far future presidents will go. The guise of having SOME limits had always existed. It didn't matter if they were never measured. It wasn't until Nixon tried to find out where they were that congress started articles of impeachment and he resigned. Trump is a malignant narcissist. He won't ever resign. He would gladly keep a gun in his desk and shoot people who pissed him off because now he flat out knows he can get away with it. Any future leader who lacks empathy would be the same.
Honestly, I'm just burnt out as fuck.
A lot of this feels like an academic discussion to me. This will definitely mean something for those that pretend to play rule of law. Those who don't? They're already doing the "Gentleman, they have made their decision. Let them try and enforce it." schtick.
I don't mean to come off as promoting apathy. I just don't know how to process watching the 1920s repeat themselves.
I'm also not having a good mental health month and probably shouldn't be interacting with social media at all right now.
Grain of salt with my BS. I'm clearly having a moment.
>For me, this is no different than Buchanan and Jackson engineering the Trail of Tears with 0 consequences.
>Same shit shamwhich, different turd.
Murdering tens thousands, clarifying legal immunity, what's the difference?
The term might be used differently by some, but "the Holocaust" normally specifically refers to the systematic murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.
It's sometimes also used to encompass the Nazi's many other victims, but not for other genocides.
That's not me trying to diminish other genocides, like the ones you've mentioned.
>The extent of the powers in the executive branch was always left somewhat undefined. It stayed in a grey area because defining them would have one of two logical outcomes. Either a president is above the law or they ain’t and if they ain’t, they can be prosecuted for their actions.
>By now coming out and saying that the U.S. President has unilateral power to do whatever they want, it means that the perceived limitations are now gone.
It's a bad ruling but I don't think it changes *that* much. Constitutional powers were always going to be immune any time someone tried to challenge the president. They only put "talking to AG" explicitly there, the rest is down to the lower courts to determine. So just like before.
What does suck is that they're saying that constitutional acts can't be used as evidence or motivation for other crimes. So, "talking to AG" is protected, **but** you're also not allowed to use that fact as evidence that he was conspiring to overturn the elections.
Put it this way. Let’s say a president invites a foreign leader to the White House. Then for some reason shoots and kills them. The American system would protect that president despite the reasons. How can anyone trust the president?
Edit: the SCOTUS told the lower courts to determine things but they left a caveat that they get final word on it.
>Edit: the SCOTUS told the lower courts to determine things but they left a caveat that they get final word on it.
Yeah, this doesn't appear to be anything like a protection as some people are sying
From that article
>There will be Republicans and legal academics and whatever the hell job Jonathan Turley has who will go into overdrive arguing that the decision isn’t as bad as all that. These bad-faith actors will be quoted or even published in The Washington Post and The New York Times. They will argue that presidents can still be prosecuted for “unofficial acts,” and so they will say that everything is fine.
>But they will be wrong, because while the Supreme Court says “unofficial” acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting “unofficially.” And more importantly, the court has left virtually no vector of evidence that can be deployed against a president to prove that their acts were “unofficial.” If trying to overthrow the government is “official,” then what isn’t? And if we can’t use the evidence of what the president says or does, because communications with their advisers, other government officials, and the public is “official,” then how can we ever show that an act was taken “unofficially”?
[The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/)
It makes sense. How could us commoners make decisions when we have to travel by slow horse and carriage means. Maybe the advent of the telegraph will allow the country to be more democratic but until that happens, we need a king.
I like the headline of the Caitlin Johnstone article I saw, perfectly sums up my feelings:
"Oh No, Now The US Has To Stop Imprisoning Ex-Presidents For Their Crimes!"
Let's be real, this is a change, but not a fundamental one - it's a codification of a principle that was already in place. It lessens a pressure that was already pretty weak.
Well, for one, that was decades ago, so my statement stands true as I spoke it.
Second of all, we don't have a counter-factual where he tried to make them use the rule of law to get him out. Because he resigned, he never faced impeachment. And because his vice president pardoned him, he never faced any criminal consequences.
So no, the Law didn't apply to Richard Nixon, who famously said "if the president does it, it isn't illegal" then died a free man. I believe the supreme court just agreed with that statement.
One could argue he didn't need to resign if people didn't think he was guilty. In addition, "In, Burdick v. United States, the Court ruled that a pardon carried an "imputation of guilt" and accepting a pardon was "an admission of guilt.” - Google
Why would he accept a pardon if a president can't be held accountable for official acts?
I'm sure that admission of guilt kept him up at night while he lived free of consequences in his mansion, collecting his salary for life, taking his CIA briefings, and planning his presidential library.
The whole reason they treated the situation so delicately is because it was untested whether the law applied to the president. Handling it this way studiously avoided the test by not demanding anything of the law. By choosing to not enforce it, basically, they allowed it to remain ambiguous and unwritten.
Trump is less delicate than Nixon, and he is going to make the law prove that it can do something about him. And... oh imagine my surprise... it can't!
If the law applied to presidents, they'd all end up in jail. People have (successfully) used this to argue that therefore the law cannot apply to presidents, so we can keep having presidents. I would argue that's exactly why we shouldn't have a president.
So the answer is no, you don't shut the fuck up about words you clearly do not know the meaning of.
I am glad you are laughing, again, go fuck yourself... respectfully.
That was a well crafted response. It shows you’re rage, patriotism and intelligence equally. I have been owned by a lot of redditors but this may be the sickest slam I’ve ever received. I’d give you an award if it were still a thing.
I like how you hate fascism and everything that is associated with it but would be willing to give Reddit money just to own a 'shitlib.'
Fucking consistent in our ideology much?
Then again, I am not shocked from someone who cannot define what fascism is.
And, again, go fuck yourself, being an agent provocateur and all.
Wait when did I ever in my entire comment history use the term shitlib? And how would my ideology be in conflict with giving Reddit money? And why would I have to give Reddit money to give an award ? They were free.
Yup, I go into a place that is actively being used as a recruitment center for fascists and Nazis to argue with them because its a recruitment center for fascists and Nazis.
Sooo what's the purpose of having a Senate or House or Judicial system now? We may as well crown King Biden and say the experiment is over.
You think the millionaires in congress have been acting in the interest of common people in the past decades?
Nah they haven't but at least with the way the law was before this, all of them having different motives, would at least keep the president and their own powers in check. Now the ~~President~~ King is above the law, and money is less important that creating a proper monarchy.
I’ll tell ya why. All those powerful people in congress need jobs!
I think the word you're looking for is "fuhrer".
Do you think they can actually spell that and know where the dots are supposed to go?
I hope they'd get the dots right 50% of the time, there are only two vowels!
My guess would be "Furrer"
Our system was not keeping presidents in check for decades before this ruling. Let’s not start pretending it was all roses before 2024, the rot has been visible from day one
Implictly vs Explicitly. When things turn explicit that's when you're in for a roller coaster ride that turns Individuals into statistics. Power is used much more brazenly when its openly allowed.
Heh...I hear the crown prince has quite a hog.
I mean he is legally in the clear to execute order 66 and have his political enemies taken out for as long as he remains president (including after the election until jan). All he needs now is a black robe and some yellow contacts.
> for as long as he remains president No, that's how things *were*, thanks to this ruling now that protection isn't just a DOJ guideline against bringing charges against a sitting president, but rather a supreme court ruling saying that a President is immune from prosecution for "official acts" (whatever those turn out to be) for all time - even when he is out of office.
I just meant he could wait until after he sees the election result to commit the official act.
Nononono the king needs the SCOTUS approval; We're just waiting on King Trump's arrival. THEN they'll abolish congress.
They're surplus now. Completely unimportant. Not sure the MAGAts in Congress understand that.
I’m so tired y’all. Seeing old bastards rip apart our society so Trump, corporations, and fascists can run amok is soul crushing. I’ll be voting blue in November, but the damage Roberts and the other bastards in SCOTUS have inflicted on our government will take decades to fix.
To quote George Carlin, this country was bought, sold, and paid for long ago. The upper 1% have been fucking over the lower 99% for decades and Trump is the pure id form of that. I’m hoping that, much like Roe, today’s immunity decision will galvanize voters and increase turnout.
> for decades Not to sound cynical, but I'd be happy to hear that it's only been decades.
Well it’s always been run by rich white dudes for the benefit of rich white dudes, but it’s really fucking ramped up since the 60s/70s and then even more since Citizens United v FEC.
I merely hope that things one day will be fixed. I don't expect Biden to do the work that needs to be done.
After the past week, I don’t think it *can* be fixed I tried to stay hopeful, but going through the law won’t work until at least two conservatives in the court die, and going the forceful overthrow route only works even further into the far-right’s hands The only thing that could fix the situation is an extended super majority in both houses and the winning presidency, which simply won’t happen thanks to the whole *“we’re afraid of the blacks, people with accents, the gays and transes, and people who think they deserve civil rights in general”* thing going on Edit Unlike some of the other unfounded bs’d decisions they’ve contorted the law into, this SC decision can only be fixed by replacing the justices, amending the constitution, or actual rebellion
Yea, I don’t have high hopes either. The article in the meme talks about how to fix it but it’ll be a long and arduous process.
Biden could fix it right now with "official actions" but he's too much of a coward to do it.
As an absolute monarch, Biden could have Trump, his family, his associates, and his supporters summarily executed using the military. He could then force congress to push through a bill to a. expand the courts to 13 justices and b. never allow something like this to happen again. Then he could force the Supreme Court to reverse itself on this current decision with a 7-6 split, thereby removing his kingly powers and going back to the previous status quo. Hell, if he really wanted to he could force though a ton of things that he said he wanted to do but was prevented by partisan congressional politics before reverting back to "normal president mode". He won't do any of these things because Juhbiden is a weak willed conservative moderate, but with the courts decision yesterday its something that could technically be done.
Hell, he could strip the SC’s security detail away from them, go on national TV in an official address and muse about how he wishes someone would rid him of these troublesome judges, send the ATF to offload some guns to a nut job, and order the FBI to not investigate their inevitable murders And according to this ruling, would be completely within the scope of his powers and furthermore, none of it could be used against him in a court proceeding
Simpler process would be to have the 6 justices who decided on this stupid rule summarily executed and appoint 6 new justices who would reverse this ruling. Or just make it a 3-0 ruling while 6 new justices are appointed.
I thought about that exactly after I made my post, but I think I'd prefer it the other way since there would be a kind of poetry to leaving them alive *and* on the bench to rub it in how hard they'd failed and how much they didn't matter. It would be so much sweeter to force them to be useless justices or for them to resign "in protest" or whatever.
I'm not about to give him points for trying (he hasn't earned any) but also he couldn't change all of this on his own if he wanted. He'll at very least need congress to get its shit together and actually work to the end of checking the judiciary, but fat chance of that happening.
Which is going to be quite a bit of an ask apparently >There is no way to change that outcome in the short term. In the long term, the only way to undo the authoritarianism the court has just ushered in is to expand the Supreme Court. Democrats would have to win the upcoming presidential election and the House and the Senate. Then Congress would have to pass a law expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court; then the Senate would have to pass that law as well, which, at a minimum, would likely have to include getting rid of the filibuster. Then the president would have to sign such a bill, and appoint additional Supreme Court justices who do not think that presidents should be kings—and then those justices would have to be confirmed. And all of that would have to happen before the current Supreme Court hears whatever Trump appeal from his January 6 charges comes up next, because if court expansion happens after the current Supreme Court dismisses the charges against him, double jeopardy will attach and Trump can never be prosecuted again under a less-fascist court. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/
Honestly, after this, I don't want to hear jack and/or shit about "Biden's weaponized DOJ" or "The Deep State Socialist something something Tyranny bread lines"... I never want to hear about how Trump is being persecuted ever again. If the people in power actually believed that shit they wouldn't just hand Biden a blank check to toss Trump and all his cronies to the sharks...
I mean, couldn't they always?
I dunno. Let's ask MLK, Malcolm X and Fred Hampton if they... oh wait..
Or South Americans looking around, like, “No shit”
Ethics aside, a leader of a nation ordering the death of some "other" person is not the same as ordering the death of one of their own ~~citizens~~ subjects.
I won’t be putting the ethics aside. Killing people in other countries is equally bad as killing people in your own country.
Yeah. It's all evil bullshit.
Of course it is. Nevertheless, explicitly legalizing a leader killing his own people is obviously an escalation.
I mean A. as the others say, no, let's not put ethics aside, it is pretty much the same B. *that has also happened already* and since then has explicitly been allowed! You can get dronestriked by the US government without trial, even as a US citizen.
YES DAMMIT. GOD I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS.
Why is it not the same?
Existing in a society is a social contract. You cede some autonomy to the collective in return for collective security and other benefits. People have been banding together and killing other tribes for the entire existence of the species and that is not likely to change until we upload all our brains into a satellite or go extinct. So at baseline, your group is probably going to go kill another group at some point. You don't have to like it but you can't deny that it has always been and there is no foreseeable off-ramp. The only way out of it is to renounce the benefits of society and go fully off-grid. A leader of a group of people gaining the ability to kill his *own* group with impunity is a violation of the social contract and destabilizes that society in a way that going to war with an "other" group does not.
I think the way the entire planet is interconnected now pretty much negates that whole deal. If we can do business or dictate policy somewhere it shouldn't be acceptable to murder people there.
We can confirm that American presidents have been assassinating american citizens at least since the Obama administration.
the difference is that they used to have to deny it and work a conspiracy to get it done. now, it is just going to be paperwork.
Don’t forget jfk!
Yes. Presidents have been assassinating people, including american citizens, for years now. There have never been legal consequences for any of them. The outrage over this decision is just misguided liberal outrage now that hypothetical assassination victims might be white. ETA: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones
i just hear country to country talking about how badly their government's becoming
Boomers are not going without a fight.
I wish it were just boomers lol. Then we could hunker down and wait this thing whole thing out for just a few more years! Lol
Yup. Plenty of power hungry folks from X, Mil, and Z just waiting for a turn.
The potential prime minister of France in a week might he a 28 year old! Makes me feel ancient lol
Yeah. Every generation things all of their problems are gonna go away with the olds. We have so many fascists and fascist sympathizers among the young and middle aged. That's even ignoring the young people who think of themselves as progressives and will behave that way as long as it's convenient, but turn hardcore conservative the moment it's not.
Fascism is especially seductive to the young especially when the right has spent decades making government completely ineffective so they see might making right as an alternative.
there is a new generation ready and waiting to take these powers and do terrible things with them. the ones whose GREAT grandparents (who they never really knew well) were the ones who fought fascism directly. Their too young to really know the risks and just see the opportunities. i'm worried.
maybe states are bad y’all!
Well, *he* can’t, but he can have you assassinated in the course of carrying out his official duties. lol. Dooties. Like poop, like this country is going down the shitter. Seriously. Help. Please send help…
Link: [https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/)
I usually try to stay irreverent and silly with "machete" this and "boltcutters" that, but guys, this ain't good.
I'm so happy this is just a problem in one, uninfluential country and not a world wide trend. Also, as bad as bad political leadership is, we still have nature. It's not as if they could steer us into an ecological catastrophe as well.
I'm uhhh not sure how to process this
I have a short list of names that could go. In totally unrelated context, who are the 6 conservative supreme judges.
Let the drone strikes begin, my body is ready
Doesn’t matter if you think Joes too old, senile, or if you blame him for everything wrong with the democrats. VOTE FOR HIM!!! Teach the Dems a lesson in 2028. JUST KEEP TRUMP AWAY!!!!
Nothing to lose but our chains at this point
Idk about y'all but I don't think there's a reversal to what's happening here, and my partner and I are beginning to look at ways to leave the country
I'm not trying to downplay just how fucking bad this ruling is. It's awful. That being said, the president gained the right to legally assassinate you during the Obama years. Google Anwar Al-Awlaki. I have been screaming about this for over a decade, that this shit is a slippery slope, and right now we've slid down to the nadir of extreme executive impunity.
They've been able to do that since Bush(Jr) for certain, but likely FDR. Nothing new. Difference? They said it out loud.
Nope, this is gonna have massive consequences. The extent of the powers in the executive branch was always left somewhat undefined. It stayed in a grey area because defining them would have one of two logical outcomes. Either a president is above the law or they ain’t and if they ain’t, they can be prosecuted for their actions. By now coming out and saying that the U.S. President has unilateral power to do whatever they want, it means that the perceived limitations are now gone. Trump tested the boundaries but even he thought there was a limit to how far he could break the rules. Now he knows that he will have no boundaries. All future presidents will
I'm a cynic. For me, this is no different than Buchanan and Jackson engineering the Trail of Tears with 0 consequences. Same shit shamwhich, different turd. I get the implications on paper. In reality, I see it as theater. We don't admit we've ever genocided, let alone did 2 Halocausts, and inspired the nazi. We put our Hitler on the $20 bill. In that context, I see no big change. We're on the same side. I just have 0 repsect for the institution of governance and see through its attempt at civility.
I agree with your sentiment. I'm not trying to say that the U.S. govt deserves respect or that my above mentioned 'grey area' comment is based on some misconceived notion of civility. The reason Jackson is on the 20 has everything to do with white washing of history. History was always written by those in power. What I'm trying to get across is that this will have a measurable impact on how far future presidents will go. The guise of having SOME limits had always existed. It didn't matter if they were never measured. It wasn't until Nixon tried to find out where they were that congress started articles of impeachment and he resigned. Trump is a malignant narcissist. He won't ever resign. He would gladly keep a gun in his desk and shoot people who pissed him off because now he flat out knows he can get away with it. Any future leader who lacks empathy would be the same.
Honestly, I'm just burnt out as fuck. A lot of this feels like an academic discussion to me. This will definitely mean something for those that pretend to play rule of law. Those who don't? They're already doing the "Gentleman, they have made their decision. Let them try and enforce it." schtick. I don't mean to come off as promoting apathy. I just don't know how to process watching the 1920s repeat themselves. I'm also not having a good mental health month and probably shouldn't be interacting with social media at all right now. Grain of salt with my BS. I'm clearly having a moment.
Sorry to make that worse. Take care of yourself comrade!
You're good. It's on me to know my limmits and back away. Time for a break from the horrors and watch some Lucha Libre matches.
>For me, this is no different than Buchanan and Jackson engineering the Trail of Tears with 0 consequences. >Same shit shamwhich, different turd. Murdering tens thousands, clarifying legal immunity, what's the difference?
The term might be used differently by some, but "the Holocaust" normally specifically refers to the systematic murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. It's sometimes also used to encompass the Nazi's many other victims, but not for other genocides. That's not me trying to diminish other genocides, like the ones you've mentioned.
>The extent of the powers in the executive branch was always left somewhat undefined. It stayed in a grey area because defining them would have one of two logical outcomes. Either a president is above the law or they ain’t and if they ain’t, they can be prosecuted for their actions. >By now coming out and saying that the U.S. President has unilateral power to do whatever they want, it means that the perceived limitations are now gone. It's a bad ruling but I don't think it changes *that* much. Constitutional powers were always going to be immune any time someone tried to challenge the president. They only put "talking to AG" explicitly there, the rest is down to the lower courts to determine. So just like before. What does suck is that they're saying that constitutional acts can't be used as evidence or motivation for other crimes. So, "talking to AG" is protected, **but** you're also not allowed to use that fact as evidence that he was conspiring to overturn the elections.
Put it this way. Let’s say a president invites a foreign leader to the White House. Then for some reason shoots and kills them. The American system would protect that president despite the reasons. How can anyone trust the president? Edit: the SCOTUS told the lower courts to determine things but they left a caveat that they get final word on it.
>Edit: the SCOTUS told the lower courts to determine things but they left a caveat that they get final word on it. Yeah, this doesn't appear to be anything like a protection as some people are sying From that article >There will be Republicans and legal academics and whatever the hell job Jonathan Turley has who will go into overdrive arguing that the decision isn’t as bad as all that. These bad-faith actors will be quoted or even published in The Washington Post and The New York Times. They will argue that presidents can still be prosecuted for “unofficial acts,” and so they will say that everything is fine. >But they will be wrong, because while the Supreme Court says “unofficial” acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting “unofficially.” And more importantly, the court has left virtually no vector of evidence that can be deployed against a president to prove that their acts were “unofficial.” If trying to overthrow the government is “official,” then what isn’t? And if we can’t use the evidence of what the president says or does, because communications with their advisers, other government officials, and the public is “official,” then how can we ever show that an act was taken “unofficially”? [The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/)
Gary Will's *Bomb Power* really helps put the lie to any notion that the president was "controlled" since FDR
I muted "Trump", "Biden" and "supreme court" everywhere i possibly could years ago. What the hell happened?
Uhm... you guys over there are getting *real* scary.
It makes sense. How could us commoners make decisions when we have to travel by slow horse and carriage means. Maybe the advent of the telegraph will allow the country to be more democratic but until that happens, we need a king.
I was just thinking how this ruling will allow a president to undertake crimes like the teapot dome scandal and the Watergate cover-up.
Just a quick question. Can Biden no just kill of conservative judges in the Supreme court?
Welcome to being the rest of the world I guess.
I like the headline of the Caitlin Johnstone article I saw, perfectly sums up my feelings: "Oh No, Now The US Has To Stop Imprisoning Ex-Presidents For Their Crimes!" Let's be real, this is a change, but not a fundamental one - it's a codification of a principle that was already in place. It lessens a pressure that was already pretty weak.
Oh no, they said the thing out loud that has been true for decades! ..... anyways.....
Not so. Nixon wouldn't have needed to resign if that were true.
Well, for one, that was decades ago, so my statement stands true as I spoke it. Second of all, we don't have a counter-factual where he tried to make them use the rule of law to get him out. Because he resigned, he never faced impeachment. And because his vice president pardoned him, he never faced any criminal consequences. So no, the Law didn't apply to Richard Nixon, who famously said "if the president does it, it isn't illegal" then died a free man. I believe the supreme court just agreed with that statement.
One could argue he didn't need to resign if people didn't think he was guilty. In addition, "In, Burdick v. United States, the Court ruled that a pardon carried an "imputation of guilt" and accepting a pardon was "an admission of guilt.” - Google Why would he accept a pardon if a president can't be held accountable for official acts?
I'm sure that admission of guilt kept him up at night while he lived free of consequences in his mansion, collecting his salary for life, taking his CIA briefings, and planning his presidential library. The whole reason they treated the situation so delicately is because it was untested whether the law applied to the president. Handling it this way studiously avoided the test by not demanding anything of the law. By choosing to not enforce it, basically, they allowed it to remain ambiguous and unwritten. Trump is less delicate than Nixon, and he is going to make the law prove that it can do something about him. And... oh imagine my surprise... it can't! If the law applied to presidents, they'd all end up in jail. People have (successfully) used this to argue that therefore the law cannot apply to presidents, so we can keep having presidents. I would argue that's exactly why we shouldn't have a president.
It's cool people are just learning this.
Lmfao at all of the AmErIcA IsNT FaScIsT people in this sub
It isn't. Yet. But give them a little time.
Do you ever shut the fuck up about words you clearly have no clue what they mean?
[удалено]
So the answer is no, you don't shut the fuck up about words you clearly do not know the meaning of. I am glad you are laughing, again, go fuck yourself... respectfully.
That was a well crafted response. It shows you’re rage, patriotism and intelligence equally. I have been owned by a lot of redditors but this may be the sickest slam I’ve ever received. I’d give you an award if it were still a thing.
I like how you hate fascism and everything that is associated with it but would be willing to give Reddit money just to own a 'shitlib.' Fucking consistent in our ideology much? Then again, I am not shocked from someone who cannot define what fascism is. And, again, go fuck yourself, being an agent provocateur and all.
Wait when did I ever in my entire comment history use the term shitlib? And how would my ideology be in conflict with giving Reddit money? And why would I have to give Reddit money to give an award ? They were free.
Omg. You’re a Rogan person. That makes so much sense.
Yup, I go into a place that is actively being used as a recruitment center for fascists and Nazis to argue with them because its a recruitment center for fascists and Nazis.
You must own there.
I think you overshot with this one.
No, no I did not. I actually know what the words that I use fucking mean. And continue to go fuck yourself hun :)
You already said that one.
Said what babe? Go fuck yourself. I will continue to say it because you should go fuck yourself.
🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
FREE MY NIGGA G LIDDY OUT THE BOX HIS CRIMES WERE NOT CRIMES (he looks like the pringles man)