People are getting this all wrong.
They haven’t crowned the POTUS as king. They were very clear that non-official acts are not covered. They’ve crowned themselves, the ones who get to determine what is and what is not an “official act” the kings.
Did you read the fucking dissent? That’s a sitting SC Justice saying that quote, not some arm chair IANAL basement dweller:
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” Sotomayor wrote.
If one of the dissenting justices thinks it likely, we better pay attention. The whole “They were very clear that non-official acts are not covered.” is a pillar built on sinking sand - what defines non-official becomes subjective real fast. Biden could assassinate every conservative justice on SCOTUS and get his own in there to make it all legal. Threats of the same to any in congress who won’t play ball.
And if someone can’t imagine Biden doing it (I can’t), I’m thinking that there are quite a few citizens who believe Trump abso-fucking-lutely would pull that shit. With a majority on SCOTUS already he could just start going after political rivals and keep SCOTUS themselves in check with threats of the same. If SCOTUS has done anything they’ve painted themselves in a corner and only Congress can unfuck us with impeachment (as unlikely as that seems!)
I read their point as being “because official acts are not defined and they’re the ultimate deciders, the Court can provide or withhold this immunity at will”. Turns out killing Republicans is not an official act and killing Democrats is.
Sure, but the court doesn’t actually have any enforcement mechanism - that’s all held by the executive. Like, a president who orders the military to assassinate a political rival is not gonna wait for multiple months of trial and go ‘oh OK I guess that wasn’t an official act off to jail I go’. They can just intimidate the judges. The Republicans are counting on any Democratic president not doing that, and are probably right.
that’s all held by the executive
From now on, that’ll all be handled by the most rabid capitol rioters. If they demonstrate their loyalty by murdering undesirable political figures, the president will throw around pardons like it’s his main competence.
All that is left than is to MAGA and consolidate Trumps power. Just look into https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives to see what will happen in the not so distant future.
The rioters will be purged after the power grab instead of the SA. They absolutely stand alone after Trump drops them faster than he can say Covfefe. With the judicative and executive under his boot, there is nothing left inside the USA to fight against. So any guesses what the first target will be after the rioters and LGBTQIA+?
Whoever disagrees on anything with Trump or is too weak to defend themselves when he needs a scapegoat for his failures.
Leftists.
This ruling is about after leaving office, when they don’t have the power anymore. Biden is still covered under the Justice Department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, but presumably the fear of being prosecuted after leaving would help restrain the worst and most blatant violations.
and only Congress can unfuck us with impeachment
Yeah, how’s that been working out so far?
As well as one might imagine!
Question for you: was this ruling incorrect? If so, how do you square that with the majority of justices ruling that way? Or do you as a fellow armchair ianal basement dweller get special privileges when it comes to your legal opinions vs that if scotus judges?
All I’m saying is that if I’m POTUS and I’m considering a questionable “official act” i know who I’m going to to clear it first.
was this ruling incorrect
Yes. The decision is fundamentally flawed and if the US survives this, it will be discussed in law reviews for decades to come.
If so, how do you square that with the majority of justices ruling that way
Are you presuming that a reactionary majority in SCOTUS ruling something squares with “correct”? Setting that aside for a second, I’ll answer it by saying their decision makes it legal for the president to commit crimes in an official capacity, and that decision is wholesale incorrect by virtually any standard other than “Conservative Party go Brrrrr”. Say that out loud a few times: “it’s legal for the President to commit crimes in an official capacity”. This is defacto opening to kingship / authoritarianism. If you go read the entire constitution (it’s pretty short) and you’ll recognize that these same 6 jurists cannot back this decision up with anything remotely resembling what the constitution says. It goes against all of the language holding our government officials accountable to the law. So yes… I square it quite easily by saying that all 6 of the majority decision jurists are wrong and just because it’s a majority doesn’t make them right.
Or do you as a fellow armchair ianal basement dweller get special privileges when it comes to your legal opinions vs that if scotus judges?
This argument doesn’t go as hard as you think. My whole point centered around the fact that you shouldn’t pay attention to me, but that you should pay attention to the dissent WITHIN THE SUPREME COURT itself. My opinion here truly doesn’t matter (which I suppose negates my first to responses above, but you asked…) but Sotomayor’s legal opinion surely matters. That was my point.
All I’m saying is that if I’m POTUS and I’m considering a questionable “official act” i know who I’m going to to clear it first.
The SC put it on the lower courts, which means any challenge to “what’s an official act” will just come back to the SC upon appeal. The conservative majority can choose to hear or not and if they do, hear any challenge, they can rule along party lines in favor. Sotomayor is saying, rightly, that other than a mild delay, this is effectively a rubber stamp for the President to commit any crime while in office. Further, my argument is that if Trump gains office again, he won’t bother clearing anything - he’ll go straight into persecuting anyone he deems disloyal. He’s already saying Kinzinger and Biden and Liz Cheney should meet a military tribunal (though there is absolutely zero jurisdiction). In any authoritarian country, this means at least life imprisonment if it doesn’t mean a firing squad. And he can do it and THEN see what the SC says. He’s not going to clear anything because he knows they are in his pocket, and he can use their own decision to eliminate them if they don’t play ball on ruling what is official or not. The SC may think they have power right now, but take this forward a year from “First day dictator Donny” and tell me the Supreme Court can do shit? They’ve created their own monster.
My whole point centered around the fact that you shouldn’t pay attention to me, but that you should pay attention to the dissent WITHIN THE SUPREME COURT itself.
Yeah, well, it sounded a whole lot more like you were attacking me and my opinion. You could have absolutely made this point without cursing and without the whole “basement dweller” part. I think we all understand that Sotomayor is a SCOTUS justice.
It’s horrendously incorrect. Listen to the dissenting justices, or constitutional scholars like Luttig and Tribe. Basically anyone who’s serious and not a craven Trump crony.
So, we’re allowed to disagree with scotus judges without being basement dwellers? I agree, both with that and your conclusion that it was the wrong ruling.
It’s just funny that I was mercilessly downvoted for pointing this out.
not some arm chair IANAL basement dweller
BTW, I never called you this. I was making an arbitrary comparison to any number of us having a conversation about the ruling and saying “not some arm chair IANAL basement dweller” compared to “a sitting SCOTUS jurist who dissented” in terms of “we better pay attention”
I think you were downvoted because your post implies you agree with the majority. You have clarified it by saying:
[you agree with] conclusion that it was the wrong ruling.
Probably should have started with that.
I responded more directly since your ire seems to be pointed at me.
Probably should have started with that.
I did. At least pretty clearly when I said they were crowning themselves king rather than the POTUS king. Apparently, tho, I have to say I disagree with the ruling in every post or posters will assume that any disagreement with someone who claims the ruling is wrong must mean I think the ruling is correct. I guess I should have known this already tho.
BTW, I never called you this.
“Did you read the fucking dissent? That’s a sitting SC Justice saying that quote, not some arm chair IANAL basement dweller:”
Funny to read you say my post, which doesn’t even remotely imply that I think the ruling was correct, implies that. . .but when you respond to my point, saying it is wrong, and throwing in “not some arm chair IANAL basement dweller,” that doesn’t imply you think that about me.
I responded more directly since your ire seems to be pointed at me.
You’re projecting here, as you were the one cursing at me and insulting people. I said nothing about you and I’m not really irked at all; I understand fully how partisan the average poster is and that any dissent is going to get piled on.
Apologies if it came off that way. Truly meant that as a generalization and pretty much include myself in the snark if it matters at this point…
Strong incentive to not step down if you can just keep being a crook. Watch how quick the republicans start to argue over what is “official” and what isn’t depending on who is president.
fascism has never been reasonable, or it’s self consistent.
And they’re going to quickly find out how much that illusion of power is worth when they try to contain or cross whatever right-wing fascist they help empower.
These idiots think their power structure isn’t going to be gutted like some kind of Mortal Combat move as soon as it is convenient for the king of the US to do so. They have no enforcement of their own, the other branches barely have to listen to them as it is, and by the time whatever CIA maga thug clubs them to death in their bed it’s going to be too late for them to render a judgement on whether it’s an official act. They’ll be dead and replaced with someone who values their life more.
So the POTUS gets to pick his jury, which Trump did.
So let’s say, hypothetically.
The president thought that people shouldn’t eat chocolate ice cream. It’s anti-american.
And “for the good of the country” anyone who eats chocolate ice cream has to be isolated from the rest of society.
That’s not an official act. It’s not really on the periphery of official acts.
But because definitionally anything that, at the president’s sole discretion, is “in the best interest of the United States” is now argued as an official act.
Biden likes vanilla ice cream.
But he isn’t going to detain you for unamerican activities if you prefer chocolate ice cream.Choose freedom! Choose chocolate ice cream!
Then why did they send the decision back to lower court to decide what “official “ acts are?
So that they can be appealed to in any specific case and decide for themselves.
So, if Trump does an official act, and assasinates all the SC justices, who decides then?
If a president is killing off supremes, we’re well past following rules, so that’s anyone’s guess.
The next official act of president Biden should be to drone strike a terrorist at Mar-a-Lago
King Joe (crowned by his new subject, John Roberts) acts officially by not negotiating with terrorists.
Biden should just have the justices arrested as an official act.
*assassinated
Whilst technically immune now, assassinating them is still extremely polarising and likely to make martyrs, forever. And they won’t be able to justify the consequences of their decisions.
Re-arresting them constantly however, from the oval office, interfering with their civil liberties… They themselves would have to describe how it’s not an official act, and why the president shouldn’t be immune.
The moment they make a ruling… destroy their property, seize their assets, etc… Make their lives a living hell.
It’s still polarising, but makes them feel the consequences of their actions. And they’ll have to justify it in the public court of opinion for everyone to see to why this is a good thing.
I’ll take dead martyrs over actively corrupt figures of absolute authority any day any how.
It’s easy to fix. Joe appoints pro-constitution justices, they in turn prosecute him for murder.
Would those who said president can kill anyone after being killed by president be martyrs?
It would be a valuable teaching moment.
What’s the point of impeachment if the president is immune to everything anyways? This ruling makes no sense
The argument, such as it is, is that impeachment is the remedy for a Mad King Trump situation, rather than the courts. In fairness, this is not a completely unreasonable reading of the Constitution, but the framers’ intent is almost completely irrelevant to the reality of our current political system. As originally written, the federal government was basically designed to be a vaguely-representative oligarchy, with states free to appoint senators and presidential electors however their legislatures saw fit – the majority of states did not consistently hold a popular Presidential vote until the 1820s, for example. Impeachment by 2/3rds vote is not an unreasonable bar to set when it’s assumed that everybody in government is going the part of the class and social structure, and the President acting as a class traitor would put all of Congress into uproar. The founders did not anticipate more direct democracy, the two-party system, or the vulnerability to demagoguery that those things would introduce into the system.
So here we are now, with a nakedly partisan Supreme Court majority holding that the only way to interpret the law is to ignore the world as it is and instead imagine things are still as they were at the end of the 18th century (mostly because that philosophy plays into the hands of the right wing) and pretending that a 2/3rds vote in the Senate is still a reasonable bar, when in fact the present political reality is that you will never peel 12+ sycophantic Senators away from a dangerous demagogue’s camp for long enough for an impeachment process to succeed in removing him from power. Of course that’s by design, but textualism and originalism paved the road to this ruling.
At this point I’m not even ironically suggesting that Biden should call their bluff and start offing prominent right wingers. The Roberts court is clearly working in the assumption that Democrats won’t play dirty with the tools they’re laying out for their incipient god-king, and it’s looking increasingly like the only way to keep those tools out of their hands is to strike first.
The founders did anticipate direct democracy, the two-party system, and demagoguery. These were much discussed. They weren’t able to provide perfectly for these eventualities, which also was well understood at the time.
The constitution clearly doesn’t allow a president to be removed from office by a prosecution, but it just as clearly doesn’t offer any immunity to a prosecution for presidents and not to mention ex-presidents. There’s never been a presidency, including Donny’s, where a criminal charge was even contemplated that would have impinged on a president’s legitimate duties.
The founders did anticipate direct democracy, the two-party system, and demagoguery. These were much discussed.
…and notably not a part of the constitution they eventually drafted, which was my point. Rather than try to build a democratic system with effective safeguards against demagoguery, they chose to have a system where only “the right sort of person” got a say in the running of government, and assumed that the separations and limitations of power they wrote in to the rest of the document would be sufficient protection against bad actors in that scenario. Now, we have (more or less) representative democracy, but with no additional guardrails to protect against someone like Trump, and SCOTUS is peeling away what we do have day by day.
Well said.
You can remove court justices via impeachment. They’re not impeaching the president, they’re impeaching the Supreme Court justices. They’re nominated by presidents and confirmed by congress, so it falls on congress to remove them.
Considering that an ex-president who invaded a country under a proven false pretext and in violation of international law and has a million Iraqi civilians on his conscience is still painting his little pictures in Texas, perhaps the Supreme Court decision is not as big a break as some seem to think?
One could at least argue that the Iraq invasion was within what was generally understood to be the role of the president at the time, specifically leading the military as its commander in chief. No one expected throwing a coup to be within the normal role of the president, but apparently that’s also covered according to this decision.
Would’ve been covered even under qualified immunity. Absolute immunity allows you to break laws you know you’re breaking.
Not American, so excuse the silly question.
What is stopping the President from dissolving the Supreme Court?
It’s not within his powers to do so. But he could have the secret service assassinate them. Pardon the perpetrators and then assign whomever he wants the position with threats against the lives of the senate and congress as a whole for all who would vote against assigning this person. Elimate them and have the vote.
What are the chances of Biden doing what’s necessary for the country?
None. If cared about “what’s necessary for the country” he would’ve stepped aside for better candidates in 2020.
He did… then the DNC said “we don’t like these people, please run Mr. Biden, we beg you!”
Zero.
Kings and royalty are nowadays mostly entertainment. The king function is now called a dictator
Well the president is still limited in what powers he has, he just now has absolute immunity from legal repercussions to his actions and decisions.
The way I understand it, if he breaks those limitations in what powers he has, there are no consequences
We are a nation of cowards and fools.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to circus.
I hope Biden will take this opportunity as the new king and show Republicans that this is a two-way street.
Biden hasn’t even parsed the news yet most likely, let alone magically grown a spine.
So…couldn’t now Biden have Trump killed or maybe just his brain fried and get away with it?
If he uses government resources for it, yes.
Well what is he waiting for?
“I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers I’ve had for three-and-a-half years, but any president – including Donald Trump – will now be free to ignore the law,” Biden said.
Source: CNN
Imagine how fun it would be though if he gave the order anyway
Democrats don’t have the f’ing stones to do anything with this ruling.
They’ll just yell “High Ground” and expect idiot Americans to give them the win.
bidens too weak for that
Well dark Brandon should go ahead and just pull trigger then, since he gets a free pass.
God I wish
Hey say that with more respect, okay?
That’s His Majesty, King Dark Brandon to you!
Long live King Biden! Take out them enemies King Biden
I’m not one of those people who thinks Biden won’t make it through the next presidency, but I think you’re setting yourself up for disappointment hoping that he lives a long time.
He only has to live long enough to get it done.
And if he passed away, we would have Queen Kamala finish the job.
Buy guns, buy bolt cutters, buy an angle grinder.
Gas masks too. Look to the Hong Kong umbrella protestors for inspiration on how to prepare and what to expect from a fascist crack down.
The sad part is that if it gets that far, the cops are just going to start shooting. Expect agent provacateurs out the gate.
No doubt, but watching Americans get gunned down by police at a protest isn’t going to make people less radical, it radicalizes more people. Especially if it’s happening under someone as despised as Trump. It’s not like he has a bunch of good will with the majority of Americans, at most he’s depending on their apathy.
Different martyrs than dead justices.
Traffic cones are perfect to contain those tear gas canisters!
start saving your beer bottles, fill up the gas cans, buy styrofoam and shop rags
Buy a dozen roses, urine is stored in the balls, play odd at the roulettes
President Trump signed Executive Order 13823 which kept Gitmo open and declared that the USA can detain “persons captured in connection with an armed conflict for the duration of the conflict.” That being stated in Trump’s executive order makes it clear that detaining such a person would be an official act.
Trump and his MAGA supporters have made unproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen and they intended to overthrow the government and install him as President on Jan-6 despite his election loss. Trump and his supporters have made continuous threats of violence and committed numerous acts of violence since then. It is therefore clear that the violent conflict that started on Jan-6, 2021 has not yet concluded. Trump and members of his MAGA army can legally be detained, without charge, for the duration of this conflict if and when they are captured.
Now there may be some question about who would capture Trump and his criminal allies and where they would be detained. It’s really quite simple. George W. Bush gave us extraordinary rendition. This program used agreements with about 50 other countries to abduct “terrorists” off the streets of those nations and hold and interrogate them indefinitely in CIA black sites. It is debatable on whether or not the CIA, NSA, or FBI could legally capture Trump or any of his terrorist allies, but that is not a problem. No doubt there are any number of foreign powers that would be happy to do so on our behalf for some diplomatic or financial consideration. Negotiating with other nations and arranging treaties and agreements is unarguably part of the Presidents job and therefore an official act.
Thanks to this ruling all Biden needs to do to save our democracy is to come to an agreement with one or more nations to capture the terrorist Trump and transport him to some black site in a foreign nation. There he can be held, and interrogated if need be, until such time as the conflict with his MAGA army is ended. If there are any legally questionable actions by Biden here, they in the nature of official acts, and he is therefore immune to prosecution now or in the future. Should anyone else involved be charged with a federal crime during the capture or detention, Biden can simply pardon them.
Thank you SCOTUS. You’ve given Biden the ability to save our nation with no legal risk to himself or anyone else involved in the process… Except, Biden would never do any of this because he is a decent human being. So what SCOTUS has really done is destroy our nation. This is the dumbest ruling ever made by this or any other SCOTUS in the history of this nation. The next Republican president will almost certainly not be a decent human being and will commit atrocities that he or she will never be prosecuted for and will tear down our democracy and will rebuild our nation as a Christian theocracy.
Joe Biden should do what he can with these keys. If I were him I’d have them questioning their ruling 1 minute in.
