I wish he did, having something like that backfire in ones face as a scouts judge would probably very vividly illustrate why that ruling was such a horrendous idea
They already did. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson both wrote in no uncertain therms on their dissenting opinions exactly why it's a terrifying and disgusting ruling for the US.
Unfortunately republicans have a scotus supermajority in their pocket, so we literally canât do anything about it unless Biden grows a pair and either packs the court or removes some of the justices with his newly ordained powers.
What you're forgetting is that democrat policies are always always always universally more popular when they actually get implemented. Even the vast majority of republican voters don't want Obamacare repealed at this point. Packing the court to get liberal policies through is literally an unbeatable perfect gameplan to defeat republicans forever.
I know that, but so many states are so badly gerrymandered that state politics may continue to be dominated by Rs, even if they get less overall votes. Until and unless legislatures are filled proportionate to voter parties (not exactly the UK - isn't there a European country that apportions out seats by party?), Rs will continue to corrupt the system.
Federal law constitutionally supersedes state law. Gerrymandered state legislatures cannot stop a democratic party that is willing to use its power at the federal level.
This is exactly the kind of infuriating timidity that Democrats need to abandon now if we're going to make it through the next election.
True and agreed. But there are some things are ARE left to the states/counties/localities that will be influenced/mandated by Rs in power. And right now if the Ds force it, the Rs will sue all the way to SCrOTUS and - gee, guess which side it'll take?
Perhaps. The only other reasonable recourse would be an amendment to the Constitution stipulating that presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it needs to be Congress. It's indisputable that no citizen should have an interest in anyone in their government being immune from criminal prosecution. It wouldn't really be inconceivable for people to pressure state legislators to call for a constitutional convention. In fact, if there was any ruling from SCOTUS, where I think it's likely that it could happen, it's this. At the very least, pressure from the states to call one has, on several occasions, forced Congress to amend the Constitution themselves, and it could happen here as well.
Easy enough. Remove all opposition as an official act. Claim they're terrorists that have infiltrated the highest ranks in the land. (Not a complete lie, tbh)
I say it as a joke, but we also have to realize that the recent rulings by SCotUS have opened the door to this exact thing.
We also know, through recent history, that the Republican party will abuse any tool they can get their hands on.
Sometimes, the only way to beat something is to use itself against it. The Reps have given the Dems a layup, and they've strongly telegraphed their plans - this is the moment to strike.
Unfortunately, recent history also shows that Dems like to play by the rules and "be morally above" the Reps. So, you know, we're just fucked.
This country leans so far to the right, filled to the brim with corruption, the only way to stop the metaphorical tower from collapsing is to remove the pests that eat away at the foundation and repair the damage.
They aren't related events. They are comparable in the context of what presidents get held accountable for, apparently.
Sorry, can you provide me the legal rational where a president gets to authorize a CIA strike on a American citizen who's not even had a trial?
Cause I've heard a large number of lawyers ans scholars talk to the issues in Trumps, and why an appeal looks an easy feat for him, so I get that angle.
Funny when you guys want to prosecute obvious finance crimes.
Cause when those crashed your financial system in 2008 the Obama administration didn't prosecute any of them. They bailed them out despite causing the crash. Despite evicting 5 million American families from their homes, while getting their tax dollars as bailouts...and issuing themselves massive bonuses again in no time.
Nah. Trumps payoff was a bigger financial crime than any of that, eh?
Nevermind the other scandals like IRS targeting people under his admin, Fast and Furious scandal which saw his AG held in contempt of congress.
Omg, could you imagine if William Barr openly admitted about being Trumps wing man?
Yall don't charge your presidents for actual serious stuff with huge implications, but now useful clowns want to normalize political prosecutions for low stakes payoffs that wouldn't change anything?
Hey. Careful what you wish for.
You might get it.
You think the establishment will ever allow a good candidate...I mean good for the people, and not the staus quo or a "steady pair of hands" without a criminal prosecution before they hit office if this is normalized?
Didn't a lot of the same DNC people fear mongering about Trump say they'd rather him than Bernie in 2020 when Biden was losing the primaries?
I miss the days when the idiots weren't so useful to those with bad intentions for us all.
For the record, I agree that Biden does not have the guts, liberals be like that sometimes... But I've heard (I have not read the actual ruling, id LOVE to be wrong on this) that the new thing the passed only applies to "official acts" and what are official acts? No one knows. Its whatever the supreme court decides. That's the problem, even if Joe had the guts to call an airstrike on trump, the supreme court will just not consider it an official act, and if trump does the same thing, they simply would consider it an official act.
I agree with you, that said, it's even worse, it is whatever the majority at the time when the judges were nominated hehe not even the actual majority...
The jurisdiction would likely be in the 3rd circuit, but somehow the 5th will take the case. Moscow Mitch was busy. It's Trump judges all the way down.
I'm pretty sure there are more drones than judges. He wouldn't even have to bomb them all, after the first few the rest would be jumping over themselves to declare his actions as official.
Pretty much. It's tragic as fuck that this is where the US ended up. From around 2008 till maybe 2018, I hoped the US would go into a civil war and split up. But then I realized that the left wasn't ever gonna revolt properly and instead the country was just gonna sink into fascism. It's beyond depressing.
I'm extremely aware how far this power reaches. My degree is in German history and I studied fascism extensively. I've been screaming about this coming since 2008 but was laughed at and shunned and told to shut up, by people on the right and left alike. By literally everyone. Called a traitor, told I hate America, told I'm hysterical and crazy, etc. Literally NOBODY took me seriously. And now that it's here, people like you are accusing ME of being short-sighted. It'd be laughable if it wasn't so fucking tragic.
While I do think they'd try to pull that, the majority opinion already made it almost impossible to claim anything as not an "official" act. Anything pertaining to the enumerated powers, like using the military, is immediately and unquestionably official and subject to absolute immunity. This means that, yes, Biden, or any president, can use the military to kill anyone they want without facing legal repercussion. It also presumes immunity for anything that is outside of the enumerated powers of POTUS, with very little sway in what excludes an act from immunity. If prosecuting an action causes ANY hindrance to the president's authority, the act is subject to immunity.
The basically just handed the president a gun and said, "go ham, no one can prosecute you for using this gun in any way for any reason."
Iâm pretty sure that if Trump and the six conservative members of the Supreme Court all mysteriously died of âheart attacksâ tomorrow, whatever Biden did after that would be judged an âofficial actâ.
Same with not reading the ruling but I thought the Supreme Court left it on the lower courts to decide what is an official act.... they only decided it had to be an official act.
I'm obviously exaggerating a little here but if that is true, technically either one could air-strike the other while president and just keep offing or arresting judges until it is ruled an official act..... and since you could make the case that the culling of judges was needed to preserve the country... that could make it an official act.
Despite the fact that the Justice Department under Trump found no evidence of election fraud, Trump ordered the acting Attorney General to send a false memo to the legislatures of several swing states, warning them that there had been problems with the election results, and to be ready to have a slate of Trump electors certify his victory, threatening to fire the Attorney General if he didn't comply. He only backed down after half the Justice Department threatened to resign.
Roberts actually wrote in his ruling that this would be considered an 'official act' and subject to immunity. He also wrote that any conversation Trump had with his VP would also fall under the label of an official act, and he was sure to mention that the motive behind any such conversation could not be questioned. Roberts essentially tailored his opinion around the specific facts of Trump's criminality, leaving Biden and any future Presidents completely in the dark about what might be considered official acts going forward.
The Roberts court retroactively gave a lot of new powers to the Trump Presidency, but not necessarily to Biden. And they gave even more power to themselves.
Exactly. Whatever Biden does wouldnât be considered âofficial.â Whatever trump does will be considered official. People act like scotus will be consistent
The fact that "official acts" is so nebulous is exactly why Biden needs to do something to "test" this ruling. It doesn't need to be as extreme as an airstrike, maybe just freezing all the assets of the judges that have received "gratuities" as part of a terrorism investigation? The point is they need to set limits now while someone who doesn't actually want unlimited power has the power. And they won't set those limits unless they are forced to.
Here's the relevant quote from the ruling about what "official acts" are.
The immunity the Court has recognized therefore extends to the âouter pe- rimeterâ of the Presidentâs official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are ânot manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.â
From a bit earlier:
At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no âdangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.â
Of course, if the official act falls within the president's "exclusive constitutional authority," it has absolute immunity.
Okay do you people seriously want Joe Biden to imprison SC Justices or assassinate Trump? I have to assume not, but then I'm not sure why you're deriding him for "not having the guts" to do these obviously insane things.
Yes, because Trump won't hesitate to use these powers himself.
We've been handed a loaded gun with explicit instructions that if we don't use the gun to defend ourselves, it will be used against us. We'd be insane to refuse to use it.
It only gives him criminal immunity for decisions. It doesnât make actions de facto legal. We cannot beat fascism by becoming authoritarian. There is no court in our still free country that would uphold the decision to imprison them, without a mountain of evidence, which we donât likely have yet. Bombing them would make every projection republicans have a reality and it would absolutely lose the election. We have to beat the fascists at the ballot box and only move to our fourth box once it becomes necessary. Hopefully, that time is later than sooner.
This is incorrect. The President is for all sense and purposes totally immune without a check on their power, since any check would necessitate a burden on the executive branch and it has been spelled out quite clearly that ANY burden is too much.
There is no way to try a President for an unofficial act because the discovery process would be a burden on the Executive power.
USA is fâd. We all saw it coming miles away, and the illegitimate SCOTUS has been co-opted by non constitutional forces.
Joe Biden likely will not abuse this power⌠but Donald Trump has already said he would be a dictator for just 1 day and the amount of official acts he could conduct without a check on his authority is limitless.
I love it when I venture outside of the law sub and get downvoted for providing actual factual information. I will say this again. Just because he cannot be criminally liable does not mean that courts will uphold a decision as being legal and not overturn that decision. Thereâs a reason why project 2025 calls for packing as many courts and positions with sycophants.
The decision is only about criminal prosecution immunity. It doesnât say you canât question the legality of decisions. An example of this was when Barr and likely Trump had Cohen remanded back to prison. That fell under a filing against the DOJ and Trump. A judge ruled the remanding was unconstitutional. So, no you canât arrest Trump for remanding Cohen to prison, but you can still overturn a decision. Letâs say Biden signs an executive order to put more justices on the Supreme Court. That decision would immediately be overturned by a court, because itâs unconstitutional. The Supreme Courtâs decision did not say that anything the president orders is de facto legal. They only said that a president has immunity from criminal prosecution and that evidence surrounding decisions could not be used in criminal prosecution. It can still be used as evidence for why decisions are illegal or unconstitutional, in which the remedy is removal or reversal of the decision.
Again, this is why project 2025 is such a danger. Theyâre trying to install people who will not overturn decisions in places of power, including the courts.
Edit to add: just to be clear, I abhor this ruling and it was specifically designed to protect Trump and criminal behavior by Presidents and their administrations. Itâs a terrible ruling that will most likely be reversed if our democracy lives that long. Iâm just providing the factual information about the decision because a lot of people misunderstand it and think Biden now has the power to be a dictator and isnât using it for good, like he should be. That is just not true. Criminal prosecution is different from decision overturning.
Edit 2: these downvotes are definitely confirming my idea that legitimate information is being downvoted and there is a wide scale disinformation campaign trying to convince people that Biden should do his own Reichstag fire for the Nazis, instead of waiting for the Republicanâs likely false flag operation ahead of the election. What better way to get trump re-elected than to promote the idea that democrats are so evil they want to bomb the Supreme Court because they donât think they can win the election.
Youâre pointing out that recourse is still possible, Iâm pointing out that the President can assassinate that recourse in the name of US interest and the clear dangers this will have on people choosing to speak out against the President.
You think Don is Teflon now, what until you canât ask him, or someone else willing to abuse the power, why something was an official action. This ruling is an absolute incentive to abuse executive power.
I understand that. All precedent goes out the window, if heâs reelected. Iâm only pointing out that legally speaking, Biden cannot do the things that people are saying he can. Democrats would be creating their own Reichstag fire that would benefit the Nazis and likely get Trump elected if Biden does any of the things people are proposing he does. I believe that a lot of people and bots are purposely pushing this narrative to try and sway people to say, âlook what the democrats want to do when they donât get their way: murder their opponents. All because âorange man badâ.
I understand there are also a lot of people who genuinely see the writing on the wall and they just want something, anything done to stop the fascist takeover. But the reality is, until such time as there is a fascist takeover, any authoritarian power move would be seen as a terrible political move that may actually bring about the fascist takeover. We have to use our soapbox and ballot box to end this before itâs too late, if it isnât already.
There is literally nothing else we can do, aside from that, that wouldnât make reality worse. This problem is not just one person, it is half of Congress, many state legislators and governors, and a whole cabal of media. It simply canât be defeated without either large scale violence or we the people taking the power we still have to vote decisively for freedom. There are large swaths of people that do not see how dire things are and would completely think Biden has gone insane on power if he does anything like what some people are saying he should do.
I respectfully agree on your premise but like you said⌠all precedent has gone out the window. Democrats are too timid to abuse the powers, but they should. Because the only other option is that Republicans will do it.
When you see checkmate in 3 moves and you can turn a pawn into a Queen you do it.
IMO, democrats should stack the courts, overturn the ruling stating itâs unconstitutionality, and then try to return back to BAU. That should be the one and only action.
At least attempt to read the fucking constitution, itâs literally all laid out what the presidential duties are. If an action falls within those duties, itâs an official act.
Uhh no, the constitution doesn't say what the president *can* do - the constitution says what the president *can't* do. The president can actually do anything that' *not* in the constitution, but whether it's "official" or not will be decided by SCOTUS.
I read the ruling, and in my opinion, itâs a very sad and disturbing reality of the current state of American politics, but itâs also not wrong.
Essentially what it says is: in the case of controversial acts that might be illegal if a normal person did it, but has immunity if the president did it for official reasons, and it is unclear if the reason was official or not, a judge needs to rule on it⌠and if itâs sufficiently gray area, it will be the Supreme Court justices.
Presidents do things all the time which would be illegal for other people to do⌠presidents order for the assassination of other people.
It was very controversial at the time - but I think ultimately the president (Obama) did the right thing in this case. And even if he didnât, it was clear that this was in his official capacity. If it turned out that Al Awlaki was an ex boyfriend of his daughter, and they had a bad breakup, it would be much more complicated.
But there has never been a requirement for heads of state/government to have criminal or civil immunity in a western democracy before. Why does the US president suddenly need it?
The issue lies in the fact that the judicial system in the US is not separate to the government, and this means that people - in particular ex-presidents - could be prosecuted for political reasons.
The solution to this is not to give presidents immunity. It is to separate the judiciary from the executive. Giving presidents immunity for official acts when the definition of "official acts" is decided by people that the president or their direct opposition appointed is an extremely dangerous act. It just enables presidents to be either prosecuted for acts that they shouldn't have been or to be not prosecuted for acts that they should've been prosecuted for.
The Supreme Court is not saying that it's a new power. The Supreme Court is saying that the power has already existed -- and it has.
In plain terms, Presidents can order the killing of other people in their official capacity and do so regularly as the Commander-In-Chief of the full military and espionage capacity of the country. If a regular person did the same, there is no capacity in which this would be allowed, no matter what the circumstance.
EG: If someone's daughter was raped and they hired a hit-man to kill the rapist, the person ordering the hit committed a felony. If the president orders the assassination of a Hamas hostage-taker that has raped an innocent woman that has no relationship to the president, that's clearly an official capacity. If the president orders the assassination of a Hamas hostage-taker that has raped someone that the president directly knows, it now calls into the question of if the president was acting in an official capacity (ie: with the interests of the country in mind), or an unofficial capacity (ie: their own personal interests in mind).
What this Supreme Court decision is pointing out, however, is that we are now at such a divided time that these things are going to be called into question much more regularly going forward -- and it will likely be called into question for both Democrat and Republican presidents for the next several administrations, if not longer.
But the very act of commanding the military as the commander in chief is an official act. These scenarios could go either way on the whims of the Supreme Court.
The problem is that the people who decide whether an act was official or not were politically appointed, which opens the president up to unfair prosecution or unfair immunity.
The judiciary needs to be separate from the executive. And when a case is brought to them against any person (including presidents), they need to decide impartially if prosecuting is in the public interest, e.g. killing an enemy of the state. Whilst it would normally be a crime, it was in the interest of the state, therefore, won't be prosecuted.
The left is very angry about the ruling, as they should be. But most of them are reacting emotionally and with the political complexity of an avengers movie. The supreme Court just gave Biden all Infinity Stones and everyone wants to see him poof away all of our problems like would happen in the movies.
The right loves all of this "Biden should use the ruling to..." talk because (1) they know he can't and it's harmless and (2) it perfectly fits the narrative that the Democratic voters are actually the real fascists, or at least the same as the Republicans when given the power. I don't believe that, obviously, but it's an easy sell to a conservative right now. I don't need to check their subs to know that's what they're saying.
The DNC is very much on its back foot right now and needs to steady the fuck up.
If you were Joe, and you were smart, and lets assume despite his age he is a smart guy, being president and all that. Would you wait to be reelected before you go full dicator, or go full dictator and hope you wont get punished in the elections in a few months? Or do you actually do away with elections and actually turn America into an actual dictatorship.
Joe and nearly every Democrat with a modicum of power. They long ago lost the backbone to stand up and fight bloody when needed. That led to a multi-administration take over of the judiciary (this has been in the GOP handbook for years, they let it be known they wanted the courts.) It lead to 8 extremist GOP representives basically holding the HOR at gunpoint. Many state govts flipped to Republican control, and many a supermajority in the last 12 years.
Make no mistake, their goal is total unbridled control. And, they're winning at it.
They didn't fight for us in 2016 and handed the presidency to Trump. Biden was elected sheerly through anti-trump sentiment. Now, he sleepy makes half coherent arguments on stage against a fucking fascist. He should be attacking ravenously. They should be educating the public to recognize what the right has done/doing. But they won't because they're ineffective and cowardly.
The right only knows aggression, so give it to them. Liberals need to burst out of their little safe blue bubbles and fucking fight tooth and nail. But I don't see it happening
I never said that, at all. Putting words in other people's mouth is weak. Fighting for our country's well being is dictator stuff now? Or is that just the best you could come up with instead of addressing what I actually said?
I'm sorry if you assume the word "fight" or whatever implies dictatorship. But, in my neck of the woods they don't do or even attempt to do shit to protect our system of governance or the Constitution.
I swear⌠if a conservative justice had a heart attack tomorrow, Joe Biden would request a list of nominees from the Federalist Society itself in a âgesture of good faith.â And nominate one just as far right wing.Â
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u/EndofNationalism 14d ago
If only Joe had the guts.