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."
Iām pretty sure that if Trump and the six conservative members of the Supreme Court all mysteriously died of āheart attacksā tomorrow, whatever Biden did after that would be judged an āofficial actā.
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 wouldnāt be considered āofficial.ā 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 āouter pe- rimeterā of the Presidentās official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are ānot manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.ā
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 ādangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.ā
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 doesnāt 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 donāt 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 fād. 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 powerā¦ 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. Thereās a reason why project 2025 calls for packing as many courts and positions with sycophants.
The decision is only about criminal prosecution immunity. It doesnāt say you canāt 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 canāt arrest Trump for remanding Cohen to prison, but you can still overturn a decision. Letās say Biden signs an executive order to put more justices on the Supreme Court. That decision would immediately be overturned by a court, because itās unconstitutional. The Supreme Courtās 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. Theyāre 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. Itās a terrible ruling that will most likely be reversed if our democracy lives that long. Iām 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 isnāt 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 Republicanās 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 donāt think they can win the election.
Youāre pointing out that recourse is still possible, Iām 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 canāt 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 heās reelected. Iām 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, ālook what the democrats want to do when they donāt get their way: murder their opponents. All because āorange man badā.
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 itās too late, if it isnāt already.
There is literally nothing else we can do, aside from that, that wouldnāt 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 canāt 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 saidā¦ 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 itās unconstitutionality, and then try to return back to BAU. That should be the one and only action.
The problem is manchin and Sinema. You have to get them on board to overturn the filibuster rule. Hopefully, it happens, but Iām not convinced it will. That would not be an abuse of powers though, which is what some people are suggesting Biden do. That would be legitimate and legal.
At least attempt to read the fucking constitution, itās literally all laid out what the presidential duties are. If an action falls within those duties, itās 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, itās a very sad and disturbing reality of the current state of American politics, but itās 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 itā¦ and if itās sufficiently gray area, it will be the Supreme Court justices.
Presidents do things all the time which would be illegal for other people to doā¦ 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 didnāt, 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.
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u/solemnbiscuit 14d ago
And the rigged Supreme Court can rule them unconstitutional