Well looks like they either have to work on increasing life expectancy for everyone or lower the minimum age or presidents will become very young, right? Either way, people win.
By the way, that's max 40 for men and 45 for women, so women presidents at last!
Bring in the downvotes, my solution is the equivalent of what they're doing to young people right now yet I haven't seen anyone complain about it!
They still have Ron DeSantis. There's a good chance he will run in 2028, if either Trump wins but the GOP won't make it so that he can be re-elected indefinitely, or Trump loses and the cognitive decline will also be shown on him even more...
Doing that would require changing the constitution. Legally, this would let him go and scribble new words on the paper version of the constitution. He would be immune from the charge of vandalism. But, that wouldn't actually change the constitution.
Biden has the chance to do the coolest thing. He wont because hes the most tepid person in the most tepid party in the country but, I'd love to be wrong.
Such a good word to describe Biden. Tepid. Like a beer that's been sitting while i worked outside, or maybe the last sip of coffee. Not the best, but better than nothing.
Luckily, in this day and age, clean water is both cheap and plentiful. Unless you're in one of the places where it isn't. But in that case I doubt you have access to room temperature beer, either.
Wasn't this not really true, historically? Didn't most societies have a bunch of alcoholism specifically because it was one of the only forms of clean water available, or am I mistaken?
Especially when the alternative is a glass of poison. A warm, flat beer is not going to kill you, even though it might taste disgusting.
The worst thing is that you don't get to choose whether you're drinking the warm, flat beer or the poison. Depending on where you live your vote might not even matter. A bunch of uninformed and misinformed idiots in a few random states will decide for you which you're drinking.
Supporting genocide and not stepping down when your opponent is a literal fascist and you're unelectable, gets you compared with the last sip of coffee?
The worst part is that Biden and the Dems don't have the balls to do anything like this or intentionally put this verdict to the test. Just clutch their pearls and not actually do anything.
Biden already said as much with his response to the ruling.
Paraphrasing: "We must respect the (self imposed) limits to the presidency and I will do so. We can't exactly trust the next guy to do so and that's dangerous." (Proceeds to wag finger as if that will do fuck-all)
You know how Chamberlain ended up with a reputation for being the coward that allowed Hitler to become powerful on the world stage? Biden is gambling on this fucking election that it will prevent him from going down in history as today's version of that.
Except it will be more deserved for Biden because Chamberlain knew the Allies didn't have the capability to stop Hitler with force when Hitler was making his early moves and was quietly building up the UK's military while appeasing Hitler.
Everything that is about to come is as much at Biden's feet as it is at Trump's and all his fascist friends'.
Nobody in this administration actually wanted to prosecute Trump. That's why the Stormy Daniels case had to go through NY State Court rather than the federal system. Biden's USAs sat on these cases for nearly four years, after he took office. And they slow rolled them all through the various federal districts during the primary, with the hope that he'd lose the primary and the problem would just go away.
Everyone in the White House responsible for prosecuting Trump must have breathed a big sigh of relief when that SC verdict came down, because it gave them the perfect excuse to drop all the charges.
Democrats are like 'Good Cops'. They're not the ones actively murdering and beating and doing all the bad shit. But they do just kinda stand around while it happens and don't do much.
We need them, for now, to at least not make things worse, but what we really need is to fucking change things from the bottom up. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it is likely too late. Such change will take two or three decades, and that's if, in this next election, enough people actually rally together to start doing something, and continue doing something for the next thirty years.
Nobody in this administration actually wanted to prosecute Trump
"Tonight on Hannity: Biden LITERALLY kicked down the door at the DOJ and held a gun to their heads FORCING them to attack poor poor sad innocent Donald Saint Trump for made up crimes!"
Neat. Then we all panic. Force the rule change back and Biden goes out a martyr hero instead of a lackluster shill who slowly shambled his way towards oppression for his constituents.
Yep, EO's are still subjected to judicial reviews.
This ruling doesn't let Biden write new laws. But, he could put out an EO and then use force to enforce it. He could put one out, that then gets overruled, then he could just claim that the justice department was wrong.
A brilliant kind of stupidity, though. They know this won't hold up, they're just trying to buy time so Trump doesn't spend part of his campaign behind bars.
Even if he were prosecuted, his lawyers could claim he was too senile to know what he was doing, and it's not like he's got enough years left in him to worry about seeing the end of it.
I wish Dems had that dog in them to fight, even if this was possible. The fact they still go around calling modern day GOP their friends and colleagues says more than enough.
To some extent, the Democrats are playing chicken with Trump's eventual re-election. They don't want to actually "seize" power in the same way that Republicans do. They want the pendulum to swing back and forth so they can keep getting re-elected and keep playing that old game of kickball with Republicans. Dems win some. Republicans win some. Everybody gets to complain about the opposition and do nothing. That Republicans seem to be updating their modus operandi from playing kickball to playing what seems to be "king of the hill, but with knives" has not quite dawned on the Democratic party collectively yet.
For real. Biden could seemingly imprison some republicans from both chambers of Congress, and secure a majority in both chambers. From there have congress pass legislation making felons incapable of running for office, and also allowing for all actions a president does liable to prosecution.
You’re thinking too small, he could fucking have Alito and Thomas thrown in jail or hanged if he were so inclined, I’m not saying he should have them hanged, but he totally could based on this ruling
If he were to do that he’d have to do it like this to save the democracy, do the damn thing maybe add his electoral opponent and a few others in, expand and fill the court, have them reverse the decision, then abdicate, turn himself in, and die a criminal hero
Nah. I mean if Biden wants to go on an anti-fascist rampage I won't stop him, but I think the six "Yes" votes will suffice. They're directly responsible and provably corrupt, they should be the only ones to suffer the consequences of their false ruling.
Why is it the dems problem? Republicans started this game. Granted, this is the same game that led to the splitting of the roman empire due to repeated assassinations of the emperor, but once the game has begun you can only play or be played.
Of course Biden shouldn't do anything heinous, but he definitely should do something earthshaking against either Republican party or the Supreme Court just to make a point.
The president can’t bypass congress for elections, because congress/states have control. You can for the military, because it’s an executive department.
The president can't do anything unless it's Trump. Then he can do everything.
Biden can appoint more supreme court justices and play the same dirty game for America.
There 100% are legal loopholes to abuse if Biden wants to. But apparently he only wants to abuse those to support Genocide. After that he suddenly grows "morals".
What's stopping him now from dissolving congress? From sending them all back home and requiring governors send new representatives. This situation is the LITERAL slippery slope Republicans have cried about for decades
The thing is that they would just not dissolve and say he has no power to do so. Biden is immune from prosecution for this, but he doesn't have power to dissolve congress and would ignore him.
What he could do is say that congress (or Trump or SCOTUS for that matter) are a threat to the nation and then have them assassinated or imprisoned. Based on this ruling, he'd be immune from prosecution for this act and would effectively dissolve them by force.
The fact that it almost incentives the president to take the most extreme and authoritarian action is the scariest part of this ruling to me.
First day of the next Supreme Court term is the first Monday in October, well before election day.
Let's have Biden call for a giant mob to show up in Washington and have them raid the place. He can promise to keep the police away, and sign a blanket pardon for all acts.
What does any of that have to do with presidential immunity? He could have done that at any time if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to because he deeply believes in the system, and because people wouldn't do it even if he called for it to happen.
Having the FBI arrest half of them and hold them indefinitely is within his authority, he just has to argue they’re terrorists. He could say every member of congress who made statements defending the January 6 insurrection is a terrorist and send them to gitmo. He’s more likely to come after the squad though.
The President is also the ranking member of the military and could use the military to halt the Congress meeting, since he would be immune. It would also mean that they could not impeach or remove him because he is immune, and you cannot charge someone with immunity.
As an official act you direct the FBI to detain a portion of congres on.. let's see.. suspected treason. Then you have congres vote. Isn't this how dictators do it?
What's stopping him is "civility politics," even when he's been handed a path to thoroughly purge corruption and fascism from the supreme court, he won't.
The GOP has shown they do not care at all about civility, and will abuse this rule.
To not play by the same rules when people's lives are at stake is a deep moral failure, and shows that politics are simply a game for the DNC when faced with a GOP that doesn't care.
I'm not so sure it's civility politics that is limiting him here. I doubt this nakedly corrupt and partisan court would actually side with his administration when it comes to agreeing that his acts are indeed official. Especially if said acts don't fit with the Federalist Society's ideology.
If he doesn't get re-elected that's a different story, and he is realistically too old to face major consequences for his actions... so it would be great if he would at least have special forces rough these guys up a little bit to make a point about the necessary limits on executive power.
So, Fat Orange Clown, how is "hiding documents you shouldn't have as a non-president" an official act? How is anything done as "not the president" an official act?
That's not what they said iirc. Now everything has to be presented to determine if it was an official act, if so immunity, if not no immunity.
It's a very half hearted way to look like they're backing trump but actually throwing him to the wolves since it's not an official act and everyone knows it. It would similarly reverse clintons impeachment since lying to Congress was as president and therefore an official act.
It would similarly reverse clintons impeachment since lying to Congress was as president and therefore an official act.
No, this decision wouldn't affect that at all. This decision covers criminal prosecution, not impeachment. Now, if Clinton had been indicted, tried, and convicted of perjury for lying to Congress after Bush was elected in 2000, then it would be unwinding that conviction, if it was determined that it was an official act as president.
Impeachment isn't a criminal process. It's also not civil. Impeachment is it's own thing, outside of the judicial system. A prosecutor can't impanel a grand jury and have the grand jury impeach an elected or appointed official. If Clinton had been both impeached and removed from office, this decision would do nothing to affect that.
On the other hand, if he had left office, and then had been criminally charged for lying to COngress, while he was sitting as President, and was convicted, then this decision would be unwinding it.
Impeachment is by definition civil. If I can shoot you in the face and get immunity then I can certainly lie to Congress. They're pretty literally saying it's absolute immunity.
"High crimes and misdemeanors" the president is immune to them all now. Criminal, civil, administrative, doesn't matter with absolute immunity comes absolute power.
It's civil the clause even specifically refers to civil officers, it's a civil process like every other process don't by the government. There is no such thing as a political process.
Now if the orange hate-crime declares assassination of AOC, Biden, Hilary Clinton, the entire Obama family, Jon Stewart, and I dunno, Steve-O, that would be official.
Because the SC decides what is official.
Oh yeah, they also decided who won the election, btw. Do vote, it will be an excellent point added to documentaries made about the collapse of the US of how people voted against.
If the SCOTUS decides what's official but they've already been assassinated, then just appoint new ones who will say it was official and reverse the decisions on presidential immunity and Roe.
Sure, totally.
That gonna happen? Because with Biden in power, mostly there's a lot of excuses about how they'll totally do stuff next time.
While the hate-group that are out of power have somehow set it up so that they can have absolute authority on the next election that they decide the outcome of
Those aren't things that would otherwise be crimes. He doesn't have immunity from procedure, he has immunity for crimes. He kill the justices, or kidnap them and lock them up in some undisclosed location. He has immunity in those cases. But expanding the court would require passing a law. Passing a law is not an action that the President takes, regardless of any presidential immunity. As for felons not being able to become presidents, any law congress passed to say that would be unconstitutional, because the constitution lays out the only requirements to become a US president. The constitution also limits the ways in which the constitution could be changed, and none of that is within the powers of a president. He could kill Trump, but he can't change the rules about who's allowed to be president.
He still believes that the system works. He thinks the checks and balances work. He believes that, regardless of the recent Supreme Court ruling, that he's not immune, so he won't commit crimes like that. The result might be that the final president of the Republic thought it was more important to follow tradition and live the values that he thought the president should hold, than to do what was necessary to prevent the Republic from becoming a dictatorship.
Exactly. So you're saying presidents can't do X... Meaning there's a penalty for X? So if president did X, that would be a crime. But if crime was committed as an official act.
No. They're saying there's a procedure for enacting new laws, and creating them outside those procedures accomplishes nothing. It's not a crime. It's also not how laws are created.
I'm the president of America, I actually accomplish whatever I want. I've unilaterally created this law as an official act. If anyone doesn't cooperate with this law, As another official act, I command the military to shoot them in the face. To protect America.
Immunity does not equate to lack of opposition within government, which is what he is going to get if he plays by the rules. Now, if he goes in as commander in chief to depose them through a literal coup, he would be legally immune from the repercussions of abusing his powers whether it worked out or not, but the mistake here would be believing that the GQP care about legality when they only consider it a means to an end to corrupt so that the people that do care can't use it against them.
Last episode of Dragon Weekly Americano, we witnessed the once heroic group known as the Supreme Court Justice 9 reveal their evil plans meant to enslave the citizens. The author made the villains so strong, the emboldened villains themselves wrote themselves a weakness knowing that there is no opposition strong enough to wield the mighty power of “Absolute Immunity” against them. Is there anyway to stop the Supreme Court Justice 9, find out in this episode of Weekly Americano.
Well, yes he is. He is both legislative and executive. In the US system head of state and head of government are the same person. In Germany for example the head of state is the federal president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He is part of the Legislative and ratifies laws. Then there is the more famous chancellor who is the head of government Olaf Scholz. He holds the executive power. Although Bidens power in legislation is limited he still has some.
He very specifically isn't both...he can use Executive orders and Veto laws, but he President can't make a law without Congress.
Correction: SHOULDN'T ... it's a free-for-all with the new King-Maker ruling from SCOTUS.
Immunity from prosecution doesn't mean he can pass laws.
Theoretically he could murder members of the other branches of government until the remaining ones did what he wanted, but it doesn't let him pass new laws or unilaterally change the constitution.
The army wouldn't go along with it. Even in countries with dictators, they need to purge the army before they try anything too radical. And, often, the generals retain a lot of power.
You all realize it’s only immunity from criminal prosecution, right? It’s not instant dictatorship power over the nation. He’d have to order the assassination of Trump and members of SCOTUS to leverage the ruling for those goals.
State sanctioned murder of political dissidents doesn't seem like a significant additional executive power to you? I'm not convinced that's enabled by this particular ruling but that's how you're framing it and the fact that doesn't seem concerning to you is pretty wild.
All of the posts and comments I keep reading are making it seem like he was granted full executive control of the government. I’m legitimately almost as concerned with the literacy of people as I am the new criminal immunity of POTUS.
Anyone who'd hypothetically take the order has an obligation to refuse it, all he's doing there is passing the prosecution that he wasn't going to be in for anyways.
Depending on the jurisdiction the assassinations are prosecuted under, and I can very well see the Judiciary hard intervening to keep that shit well out of reach of a pardon.
The precedent of sanctioned assassinations of judges might come across to them specifically as a rather especially bad one to set.
Is that so? I thought one main staple of military ranks was that if the soldier rejects an order because of judicial concerns but the superior tells them to do it anyways the judicial blame is on that superior
All this talk about Biden could do all of these administrative things that he can't legally, but it misses the point.
Say he pushes some illegal orders. He can not get in trouble for pushing them, but they can be legally challenged and shot down quickly. Especially when you can legally "tip" helpful justices.
He would need to do things that could not be taken back.
You're missing the point, where the president can now legally commit an illegal act, and call it an official act, before the lawyers can deliberate, he's rounded up dissenters in the government and had them shot. No amount of lawfare raises the dead.
Unpopular opinion: You should be allowed to run for president and be a president even with a criminal record. I don't support trump and think the convictions are well earned. But democracy is a democracy - it's up to the people to decide whether or not they should have a convicted criminal in office.
Agree. The fact that we have to try to think of ways to block this guy from being on the ballot is the truly sad part. It's mind blowing that the simple gigantic list of inadequacies and reasons not to vote for him isn't enough. I can't comprehend what has happened to peoples brains. A pod person epidemic seems like an increasingly viable explanation.
Especially given that prosecutions are often racially biased, and sometimes politically biased.
If an opponent with a criminal record can't run, you incentivize an immoral president to have their political opponents charged with anything they can think of.
OTOH, the American electorate is filled with idiots. You would hope that people would see through a purely political conviction and not let that stop them. But, the reality is probably the opposite, a serial killer who ate his victims could run, and if the party got behind that candidate, half the electorate would not know he was a serial killer, or they'd vote for him anyhow, or they'd think his conviction was just a psy-op and his victims were crisis actors.
I am from the UK and a famous example is Bobby Sands MP. Was a member of the PIRA, but was in prison and got elected MP for his constituency. While I do believe the PIRA to be a brutal terrorist organisation, the people who voted him in wanted to show their support - and I agree with their right to do that as much as I vehemently disagree with their choice
I agree, but I wish there were some way to ensure that voters were making an informed choice.
In the case of Bobby Sands, I assume they were. That was a high profile case. It's even vaguely possible to make the case that he was a political prisoner.
But, almost daily I see interviews with Trump voters who seem to have lost their connection with reality. And, it's not even a wrong but consistent worldview. It's just a bunch of incoherent conspiracy theories that fall apart under the most gentle questioning. Unfortunately, there's probably no way to restrict voting to only sane and well informed voters, because any restriction you put in place could be abused.
I think the main issue was the "don't trust the mainstream media" and "fake news" BS. It was genius if you think about it. Then people will go to him for their info.
I also understand though that the USA has less unbiased reporting, unlike the UK where unbiased is generally the standard for TV reporting, especially for the BBC.
Yes, I really think a major reason that the US is failing is the lack of an equivalent to Australia's ABC, Britain's BBC, Canada's CBC, all the way to (I wish this were true) New Zealand's ZBC.
Those public broadcasters anchor the news reporting space. Many people think they're biased, and it's probably true that they aren't 100% neutral, and definitely have an institutional bias. But, the kinds of people who work for those public broadcasters really believe in their mission to tell the truth. Normal news consumers still end up in filter bubbles, but it's really easy to pop out of those filter bubbles for a second and check out the public broadcaster. In the US, even the supposedly centrist for-profit broadcasters are heavily biased because they need to make money. The bias isn't necessarily left or right, but it's in favor of whatever's sensationalist and will keep people glued to their TVs.
Interestingly enough, you find a lot of people claiming the BBC is biased, but those people cannot agree on who they're biased towards 😆 so they must be doing something right.
Yeah, I think the truth is that they have an institutional bias. Like, they believe in the value of government, so when people are attacking the government they tend to portray that in a negative light. It doesn't matter if the government being attacked is liberal or conservative.
Those who are suggesting Biden do this or that, are forgetting the most important thing about coup d'état: his “followers” would need to actually act on his orders.
And even if they were to do that, which I doubt they would, I don’t think SCOTUS made the rank and file immune to prosecution. While they may have made it harder for Jan 6 obstructionists to be pursued, I’m pretty sure that’s limited to those Jan 6’ers. So anyone following Biden’s orders would likely see jail (or worse). Sure Biden could pardon them, but that would only happen if a) Biden was still president after a failed coup, and 2) the people being pardoned would need to be prosecuted first, which is lengthy, disruptive, and expensive.
This only helps republicans, because as horrible as they are, the one thing they excel at more than their capacity for hate is their ability to unify and work together. Democrats… yeah, ain’t happening.
Its not absolute immunity. Its presumed immunity for official acts. Its literally the same rules as always. He can still go to jail if they can prove it.
It was basically the supreme court saying "we aint touching this, you figure it out"
Make it so felons cannot run for president and resign immediately after.
If he did that Biden would be remembered as one of the greatest presidents ever.
Or change the max age to 75.
Why not both? Also make it 70.
If we're selecting cool max ages for things I suggest 69.
Personally I think it should be a definition instead of a straight number
Something like the current LD50 of old age or something.
Retirement age of 8 years ago (to prevent extending it for themselves) - 4 years.
We could tie it to average American life expectancy and that'd incentivize Congress to improve healthcare in this country
How about we just have them take the ACT or hell even a GED test to qualify to be in the running?
I swear it's easier to become president than it is to get into college.
Funniest version of this I've heard of is having to pass the citizenship test every time you want to run
Tbh as a man in his mid 20s, born and raised in the USA, and passed high-school constitution test; I don't think I could pass the citizenship test.
It's over complicated by design.
What is the minimum age to be eligible to the function?
What is the life expectancy for the candidate's gender?
Life expectancy - minimum age of eligibility = max age of eligibility
Right now that would restrict eligibility to be president down to between the ages of 35 and 41
I'm no fan of gerontocracy but I'm pretty sure almost nobody who's served as president would have been eligible under those restrictions.
Well looks like they either have to work on increasing life expectancy for everyone or lower the minimum age or presidents will become very young, right? Either way, people win.
By the way, that's max 40 for men and 45 for women, so women presidents at last!
Bring in the downvotes, my solution is the equivalent of what they're doing to young people right now yet I haven't seen anyone complain about it!
Unfortunately Trump isn’t the real underlying problem; the republican party will churn out someone even worse who is not a convicted felon.
They still have Ron DeSantis. There's a good chance he will run in 2028, if either Trump wins but the GOP won't make it so that he can be re-elected indefinitely, or Trump loses and the cognitive decline will also be shown on him even more...
But wait until after the Republican convention.
That's not how the ruling works.
Biden could go shoot Donald Trump (in broad daylight on 5th Avenue) and could not be prosecuted for it.
He cannot make new laws. That's still Congress's job, for now.
How does immunity let him do that?
Doing that would require changing the constitution. Legally, this would let him go and scribble new words on the paper version of the constitution. He would be immune from the charge of vandalism. But, that wouldn't actually change the constitution.
That's a legislative thing, not a crime to just be immune for.
Biden has the chance to do the coolest thing. He wont because hes the most tepid person in the most tepid party in the country but, I'd love to be wrong.
Such a good word to describe Biden. Tepid. Like a beer that's been sitting while i worked outside, or maybe the last sip of coffee. Not the best, but better than nothing.
We have very different opinions about the fundamental nature of "old, room temperature, completely flat" beer, if nothing else.
If you just worked for 4h in 30°C weather, believe me it is better than nothing.
Luckily, in this day and age, clean water is both cheap and plentiful. Unless you're in one of the places where it isn't. But in that case I doubt you have access to room temperature beer, either.
Wasn't this not really true, historically? Didn't most societies have a bunch of alcoholism specifically because it was one of the only forms of clean water available, or am I mistaken?
Well, I guess that's why I said "in this day and age" and not "always."
Not if we're following the analogy. Warm beer, or bleach. Or dying of thirst. Those are your options.
That is a fair assessment
Better than bleach I guess
Yeah I'm still drinking that last sip of coffee, I don't care if it's cold. Apt word, apt description.
Especially when the alternative is a glass of poison. A warm, flat beer is not going to kill you, even though it might taste disgusting.
The worst thing is that you don't get to choose whether you're drinking the warm, flat beer or the poison. Depending on where you live your vote might not even matter. A bunch of uninformed and misinformed idiots in a few random states will decide for you which you're drinking.
Supporting genocide and not stepping down when your opponent is a literal fascist and you're unelectable, gets you compared with the last sip of coffee?
The coffee: Folgers
Tepid people wouldn't have plagiarized so many speeches back when they thought no one would notice.
The worst part is that Biden and the Dems don't have the balls to do anything like this or intentionally put this verdict to the test. Just clutch their pearls and not actually do anything.
Gotta take the high road while the other side takes a road so low it undermines the foundations of everything we are!
Biden already said as much with his response to the ruling.
Paraphrasing: "We must respect the (self imposed) limits to the presidency and I will do so. We can't exactly trust the next guy to do so and that's dangerous." (Proceeds to wag finger as if that will do fuck-all)
You know how Chamberlain ended up with a reputation for being the coward that allowed Hitler to become powerful on the world stage? Biden is gambling on this fucking election that it will prevent him from going down in history as today's version of that.
Except it will be more deserved for Biden because Chamberlain knew the Allies didn't have the capability to stop Hitler with force when Hitler was making his early moves and was quietly building up the UK's military while appeasing Hitler.
Everything that is about to come is as much at Biden's feet as it is at Trump's and all his fascist friends'.
Well, if trump wins, Biden will still be president for a few months after, so there's still hope
Wrong. There absolutely is not.
I just can't even...
Nobody in this administration actually wanted to prosecute Trump. That's why the Stormy Daniels case had to go through NY State Court rather than the federal system. Biden's USAs sat on these cases for nearly four years, after he took office. And they slow rolled them all through the various federal districts during the primary, with the hope that he'd lose the primary and the problem would just go away.
Everyone in the White House responsible for prosecuting Trump must have breathed a big sigh of relief when that SC verdict came down, because it gave them the perfect excuse to drop all the charges.
Democrats are like 'Good Cops'. They're not the ones actively murdering and beating and doing all the bad shit. But they do just kinda stand around while it happens and don't do much.
We need them, for now, to at least not make things worse, but what we really need is to fucking change things from the bottom up. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it is likely too late. Such change will take two or three decades, and that's if, in this next election, enough people actually rally together to start doing something, and continue doing something for the next thirty years.
Surrounded by tigers, but don't worry I have this rock that I was told scares away all the tigers.
"Tonight on Hannity: Biden LITERALLY kicked down the door at the DOJ and held a gun to their heads FORCING them to attack poor poor sad innocent Donald Saint Trump for made up crimes!"
Reality doesn't matter anymore
Neat. Then we all panic. Force the rule change back and Biden goes out a martyr hero instead of a lackluster shill who slowly shambled his way towards oppression for his constituents.
What stopping them is that Democrats are too weak and timid to do anything.
They are simply complicit.
The mask is off. We officially cannot trust our government anymore.
Never could
don't mix up weakness with decency though
If you play by the rules but your opponent doesn't, you will always lose.
yes, but only if the oponent doesn't get penalized and gets away with it.
History and simple logic shows that if you try to out-fascist the fascist, some sort of fascism always wins.
Not mutually exclusive...
Immune from criminal prosecution*
The state AGs can and will still challenge any and all such executive orders.
But if Biden hypothetically were to kidnap, beat, or murder supreme court justices or political opponents, then that's another story.
Yep, EO's are still subjected to judicial reviews.
This ruling doesn't let Biden write new laws. But, he could put out an EO and then use force to enforce it. He could put one out, that then gets overruled, then he could just claim that the justice department was wrong.
This is so fucking stupid
A brilliant kind of stupidity, though. They know this won't hold up, they're just trying to buy time so Trump doesn't spend part of his campaign behind bars.
Even if he were prosecuted, his lawyers could claim he was too senile to know what he was doing, and it's not like he's got enough years left in him to worry about seeing the end of it.
But he's not too senile to run for president? Pick one.
I picked long ago. I just finally found a potential upside.
As in he could do it without consequence, other story?
Yes. To clarify for you:
One story is he does regular legislative actions, the states can contest it
another story is he does something criminal as official business, nobody can do shit about it
Maybe Biden should appoint a mob boss as president for a couple of weeks
Just wait until November, you'll be doing that anyway 😉
I wish Dems had that dog in them to fight, even if this was possible. The fact they still go around calling modern day GOP their friends and colleagues says more than enough.
They're all on the same corporate payrolls, dems are and have been nothing more than controlled opposition.
Cowardice, the same thing that stopped him from packing the court on his first day.
To some extent, the Democrats are playing chicken with Trump's eventual re-election. They don't want to actually "seize" power in the same way that Republicans do. They want the pendulum to swing back and forth so they can keep getting re-elected and keep playing that old game of kickball with Republicans. Dems win some. Republicans win some. Everybody gets to complain about the opposition and do nothing. That Republicans seem to be updating their modus operandi from playing kickball to playing what seems to be "king of the hill, but with knives" has not quite dawned on the Democratic party collectively yet.
For real. Biden could seemingly imprison some republicans from both chambers of Congress, and secure a majority in both chambers. From there have congress pass legislation making felons incapable of running for office, and also allowing for all actions a president does liable to prosecution.
You’re thinking too small, he could fucking have Alito and Thomas thrown in jail or hanged if he were so inclined, I’m not saying he should have them hanged, but he totally could based on this ruling
I'm saying it, and I'm saying don't stop with Alito and Thomas.
If he were to do that he’d have to do it like this to save the democracy, do the damn thing maybe add his electoral opponent and a few others in, expand and fill the court, have them reverse the decision, then abdicate, turn himself in, and die a criminal hero
Nah. I mean if Biden wants to go on an anti-fascist rampage I won't stop him, but I think the six "Yes" votes will suffice. They're directly responsible and provably corrupt, they should be the only ones to suffer the consequences of their false ruling.
That's Putin tactics
Which he taught to the republicans, which they just promulgated into law in the highest court.
Why is it the dems problem? Republicans started this game. Granted, this is the same game that led to the splitting of the roman empire due to repeated assassinations of the emperor, but once the game has begun you can only play or be played.
Turn the other cheek.
Of course Biden shouldn't do anything heinous, but he definitely should do something earthshaking against either Republican party or the Supreme Court just to make a point.
Thing is, this tool the SCOTUS has given the POTUS only works for fascists. Even if Biden did house arrests it would likely blow up in our face.
Perfect opportunity to do something, get impeached (including dems) and rally behind a new canditate.
What intern is going to give Biden a blow job?
Huevos
When you risk your own life, you've got balls.
When you risk other people's lives without their permission, you're an asshole.
At this point you be a bit of an asshole to save the fucking country…
Acting like a responsible adult and voting Blue isn't being an asshole.
Letting Trump win because of your 'strong moral compass' is being a giant one.
Biden will only abuse his presidential powers in a Trump way for real important matters.
Such as bypassing congres to send bombs to israel for Genocide.
Congress, of course, is totally concerned about Gazans. that's why they voted not to release the number of deaths! /s
The president can’t bypass congress for elections, because congress/states have control. You can for the military, because it’s an executive department.
The president can't do anything unless it's Trump. Then he can do everything.
Biden can appoint more supreme court justices and play the same dirty game for America.
There 100% are legal loopholes to abuse if Biden wants to. But apparently he only wants to abuse those to support Genocide. After that he suddenly grows "morals".
An obstructionist Congress?
What's stopping him now from dissolving congress? From sending them all back home and requiring governors send new representatives. This situation is the LITERAL slippery slope Republicans have cried about for decades
The thing is that they would just not dissolve and say he has no power to do so. Biden is immune from prosecution for this, but he doesn't have power to dissolve congress and would ignore him.
What he could do is say that congress (or Trump or SCOTUS for that matter) are a threat to the nation and then have them assassinated or imprisoned. Based on this ruling, he'd be immune from prosecution for this act and would effectively dissolve them by force.
The fact that it almost incentives the president to take the most extreme and authoritarian action is the scariest part of this ruling to me.
They doubt that Biden is willing to be a murderer, and hope that Trump will be.
So what you are saying is that biden needs to pull the trigger on an assassination?
First day of the next Supreme Court term is the first Monday in October, well before election day.
Let's have Biden call for a giant mob to show up in Washington and have them raid the place. He can promise to keep the police away, and sign a blanket pardon for all acts.
See how fast the Congress changes that law.
What does any of that have to do with presidential immunity? He could have done that at any time if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to because he deeply believes in the system, and because people wouldn't do it even if he called for it to happen.
Dissolving congress isn't an executive branch power. Congress can just ignore something like that.
The president can't just will that kind of a thing into existence.
Having the FBI arrest half of them and hold them indefinitely is within his authority, he just has to argue they’re terrorists. He could say every member of congress who made statements defending the January 6 insurrection is a terrorist and send them to gitmo. He’s more likely to come after the squad though.
Reminder that CPAC proudly declared "we are all domestic terrorists".
Every member of congress that was part of the attempt to overthrow rhe election is an insurrectionist and should be detained or in jail by now.
Shooting a gun is well within the president's power. If he can shoot a gun with no consequences, Congress doesn't have the ability to ignore shit.
The President is also the ranking member of the military and could use the military to halt the Congress meeting, since he would be immune. It would also mean that they could not impeach or remove him because he is immune, and you cannot charge someone with immunity.
He could murder congresspeople, but he can't dissolve congress.
As an official act you direct the FBI to detain a portion of congres on.. let's see.. suspected treason. Then you have congres vote. Isn't this how dictators do it?
Of course that's not how dictators work because that's an explicitly legal action in the most democratic society on earth. No way that could be wrong.
Wait... do you really think the US is the most democratic society on earth?
I'm being very sarcastic. However I hear that line in earnest from politicians on the news on both sides of the aisle.
What's stopping him is "civility politics," even when he's been handed a path to thoroughly purge corruption and fascism from the supreme court, he won't.
The GOP has shown they do not care at all about civility, and will abuse this rule.
To not play by the same rules when people's lives are at stake is a deep moral failure, and shows that politics are simply a game for the DNC when faced with a GOP that doesn't care.
I'm not so sure it's civility politics that is limiting him here. I doubt this nakedly corrupt and partisan court would actually side with his administration when it comes to agreeing that his acts are indeed official. Especially if said acts don't fit with the Federalist Society's ideology.
If he doesn't get re-elected that's a different story, and he is realistically too old to face major consequences for his actions... so it would be great if he would at least have special forces rough these guys up a little bit to make a point about the necessary limits on executive power.
So, Fat Orange Clown, how is "hiding documents you shouldn't have as a non-president" an official act? How is anything done as "not the president" an official act?
RIP
That's not what they said iirc. Now everything has to be presented to determine if it was an official act, if so immunity, if not no immunity.
It's a very half hearted way to look like they're backing trump but actually throwing him to the wolves since it's not an official act and everyone knows it. It would similarly reverse clintons impeachment since lying to Congress was as president and therefore an official act.
No, this decision wouldn't affect that at all. This decision covers criminal prosecution, not impeachment. Now, if Clinton had been indicted, tried, and convicted of perjury for lying to Congress after Bush was elected in 2000, then it would be unwinding that conviction, if it was determined that it was an official act as president.
I don't think that actually matters, if a president is immune from serious criminal prosecution the same reasoning would make them immune from civil.
I don't understand what you're saying here.
Impeachment isn't a criminal process. It's also not civil. Impeachment is it's own thing, outside of the judicial system. A prosecutor can't impanel a grand jury and have the grand jury impeach an elected or appointed official. If Clinton had been both impeached and removed from office, this decision would do nothing to affect that.
On the other hand, if he had left office, and then had been criminally charged for lying to COngress, while he was sitting as President, and was convicted, then this decision would be unwinding it.
Impeachment is by definition civil. If I can shoot you in the face and get immunity then I can certainly lie to Congress. They're pretty literally saying it's absolute immunity.
"High crimes and misdemeanors" the president is immune to them all now. Criminal, civil, administrative, doesn't matter with absolute immunity comes absolute power.
It’s not a civil or criminal matter. Impeachment is inherently a political process. This ruling has near-zero bearing on it.
It's civil the clause even specifically refers to civil officers, it's a civil process like every other process don't by the government. There is no such thing as a political process.
Biden should order assassination of the MAGA justices
That wouldn't be official.
Now if the orange hate-crime declares assassination of AOC, Biden, Hilary Clinton, the entire Obama family, Jon Stewart, and I dunno, Steve-O, that would be official.
Because the SC decides what is official.
Oh yeah, they also decided who won the election, btw. Do vote, it will be an excellent point added to documentaries made about the collapse of the US of how people voted against.
If the SCOTUS decides what's official but they've already been assassinated, then just appoint new ones who will say it was official and reverse the decisions on presidential immunity and Roe.
Sure, totally. That gonna happen? Because with Biden in power, mostly there's a lot of excuses about how they'll totally do stuff next time.
While the hate-group that are out of power have somehow set it up so that they can have absolute authority on the next election that they decide the outcome of
Nope they're definitely not going to do it :(
Those aren't things that would otherwise be crimes. He doesn't have immunity from procedure, he has immunity for crimes. He kill the justices, or kidnap them and lock them up in some undisclosed location. He has immunity in those cases. But expanding the court would require passing a law. Passing a law is not an action that the President takes, regardless of any presidential immunity. As for felons not being able to become presidents, any law congress passed to say that would be unconstitutional, because the constitution lays out the only requirements to become a US president. The constitution also limits the ways in which the constitution could be changed, and none of that is within the powers of a president. He could kill Trump, but he can't change the rules about who's allowed to be president.
He still believes that the system works. He thinks the checks and balances work. He believes that, regardless of the recent Supreme Court ruling, that he's not immune, so he won't commit crimes like that. The result might be that the final president of the Republic thought it was more important to follow tradition and live the values that he thought the president should hold, than to do what was necessary to prevent the Republic from becoming a dictatorship.
If he doesn't follow procedure would that be a crime?
Probably not.
Exactly. So you're saying presidents can't do X... Meaning there's a penalty for X? So if president did X, that would be a crime. But if crime was committed as an official act.
No. They're saying there's a procedure for enacting new laws, and creating them outside those procedures accomplishes nothing. It's not a crime. It's also not how laws are created.
No.
I'm the president of America, I actually accomplish whatever I want. I've unilaterally created this law as an official act. If anyone doesn't cooperate with this law, As another official act, I command the military to shoot them in the face. To protect America.
Yeah, that tends to happen with empires.
If I were in Biden's position, the first thing I'd do would be to [comment cannot legally be completed].
Immunity does not equate to lack of opposition within government, which is what he is going to get if he plays by the rules. Now, if he goes in as commander in chief to depose them through a literal coup, he would be legally immune from the repercussions of abusing his powers whether it worked out or not, but the mistake here would be believing that the GQP care about legality when they only consider it a means to an end to corrupt so that the people that do care can't use it against them.
Last episode of
DragonWeekly Americano, we witnessed the once heroic group known as the Supreme Court Justice 9 reveal their evil plans meant to enslave the citizens. The author made the villains so strong, the emboldened villains themselves wrote themselves a weakness knowing that there is no opposition strong enough to wield the mighty power of “Absolute Immunity” against them. Is there anyway to stop the Supreme Court Justice 9, find out in this episode of Weekly Americano.That he's an executive not legislative?
Well, yes he is. He is both legislative and executive. In the US system head of state and head of government are the same person. In Germany for example the head of state is the federal president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He is part of the Legislative and ratifies laws. Then there is the more famous chancellor who is the head of government Olaf Scholz. He holds the executive power. Although Bidens power in legislation is limited he still has some.
He very specifically isn't both...he can use Executive orders and Veto laws, but he President can't make a law without Congress. Correction: SHOULDN'T ... it's a free-for-all with the new King-Maker ruling from SCOTUS.
Immunity from prosecution doesn't mean he can pass laws.
Theoretically he could murder members of the other branches of government until the remaining ones did what he wanted, but it doesn't let him pass new laws or unilaterally change the constitution.
If I had the Army he has, I could unilaterally change whatever I want...
The army wouldn't go along with it. Even in countries with dictators, they need to purge the army before they try anything too radical. And, often, the generals retain a lot of power.
I keep seeing post and comments like this.
You all realize it’s only immunity from criminal prosecution, right? It’s not instant dictatorship power over the nation. He’d have to order the assassination of Trump and members of SCOTUS to leverage the ruling for those goals.
You are correct. But the fact that the ruling enables those actions is batshit crazy.
Kill the SC then replace them with ones to sanction anything he likes?
That’s pretty much all this ruling liberates him to do. There’s no additional executive power.
State sanctioned murder of political dissidents doesn't seem like a significant additional executive power to you? I'm not convinced that's enabled by this particular ruling but that's how you're framing it and the fact that doesn't seem concerning to you is pretty wild.
Of course it’s concerning. It’s batshit insane.
All of the posts and comments I keep reading are making it seem like he was granted full executive control of the government. I’m legitimately almost as concerned with the literacy of people as I am the new criminal immunity of POTUS.
That's fair. That didn't seem like what you were getting at but I understand that point.
Not even order it, he'd have to do it himself
Anyone who'd hypothetically take the order has an obligation to refuse it, all he's doing there is passing the prosecution that he wasn't going to be in for anyways.
Depending on the jurisdiction the assassinations are prosecuted under, and I can very well see the Judiciary hard intervening to keep that shit well out of reach of a pardon.
The precedent of sanctioned assassinations of judges might come across to them specifically as a rather especially bad one to set.
DC has it's own criminal court
Does a member of the military have the right to refuse the direct order of the president?
If the order is illegal, they'd be in hotter water if they didn't.
Is that so? I thought one main staple of military ranks was that if the soldier rejects an order because of judicial concerns but the superior tells them to do it anyways the judicial blame is on that superior
Nope, I was just following orders is no valid defence.
It depends, if the soldier should obviously have known better courts are a lot less sympathetic to "but I was ordered to!"
Being ordered to assassinate a political enemy of the president is definitely one of those "you should know better!" examples.
That’s a really good point. They’d need plausible deniability to avoid being convicted.
All this talk about Biden could do all of these administrative things that he can't legally, but it misses the point.
Say he pushes some illegal orders. He can not get in trouble for pushing them, but they can be legally challenged and shot down quickly. Especially when you can legally "tip" helpful justices.
He would need to do things that could not be taken back.
You're missing the point, where the president can now legally commit an illegal act, and call it an official act, before the lawyers can deliberate, he's rounded up dissenters in the government and had them shot. No amount of lawfare raises the dead.
Unpopular opinion: You should be allowed to run for president and be a president even with a criminal record. I don't support trump and think the convictions are well earned. But democracy is a democracy - it's up to the people to decide whether or not they should have a convicted criminal in office.
Let’s start with letting felons work and rent apartments in the US before we move on to the presidency.
Good point
Agree. The fact that we have to try to think of ways to block this guy from being on the ballot is the truly sad part. It's mind blowing that the simple gigantic list of inadequacies and reasons not to vote for him isn't enough. I can't comprehend what has happened to peoples brains. A pod person epidemic seems like an increasingly viable explanation.
Especially given that prosecutions are often racially biased, and sometimes politically biased.
If an opponent with a criminal record can't run, you incentivize an immoral president to have their political opponents charged with anything they can think of.
OTOH, the American electorate is filled with idiots. You would hope that people would see through a purely political conviction and not let that stop them. But, the reality is probably the opposite, a serial killer who ate his victims could run, and if the party got behind that candidate, half the electorate would not know he was a serial killer, or they'd vote for him anyhow, or they'd think his conviction was just a psy-op and his victims were crisis actors.
Your second paragraph is the main reason.
I am from the UK and a famous example is Bobby Sands MP. Was a member of the PIRA, but was in prison and got elected MP for his constituency. While I do believe the PIRA to be a brutal terrorist organisation, the people who voted him in wanted to show their support - and I agree with their right to do that as much as I vehemently disagree with their choice
I agree, but I wish there were some way to ensure that voters were making an informed choice.
In the case of Bobby Sands, I assume they were. That was a high profile case. It's even vaguely possible to make the case that he was a political prisoner.
But, almost daily I see interviews with Trump voters who seem to have lost their connection with reality. And, it's not even a wrong but consistent worldview. It's just a bunch of incoherent conspiracy theories that fall apart under the most gentle questioning. Unfortunately, there's probably no way to restrict voting to only sane and well informed voters, because any restriction you put in place could be abused.
I think the main issue was the "don't trust the mainstream media" and "fake news" BS. It was genius if you think about it. Then people will go to him for their info.
I also understand though that the USA has less unbiased reporting, unlike the UK where unbiased is generally the standard for TV reporting, especially for the BBC.
Our newspapers, however......
Yes, I really think a major reason that the US is failing is the lack of an equivalent to Australia's ABC, Britain's BBC, Canada's CBC, all the way to (I wish this were true) New Zealand's ZBC.
Those public broadcasters anchor the news reporting space. Many people think they're biased, and it's probably true that they aren't 100% neutral, and definitely have an institutional bias. But, the kinds of people who work for those public broadcasters really believe in their mission to tell the truth. Normal news consumers still end up in filter bubbles, but it's really easy to pop out of those filter bubbles for a second and check out the public broadcaster. In the US, even the supposedly centrist for-profit broadcasters are heavily biased because they need to make money. The bias isn't necessarily left or right, but it's in favor of whatever's sensationalist and will keep people glued to their TVs.
Interestingly enough, you find a lot of people claiming the BBC is biased, but those people cannot agree on who they're biased towards 😆 so they must be doing something right.
Yeah, I think the truth is that they have an institutional bias. Like, they believe in the value of government, so when people are attacking the government they tend to portray that in a negative light. It doesn't matter if the government being attacked is liberal or conservative.
Those who are suggesting Biden do this or that, are forgetting the most important thing about coup d'état: his “followers” would need to actually act on his orders.
And even if they were to do that, which I doubt they would, I don’t think SCOTUS made the rank and file immune to prosecution. While they may have made it harder for Jan 6 obstructionists to be pursued, I’m pretty sure that’s limited to those Jan 6’ers. So anyone following Biden’s orders would likely see jail (or worse). Sure Biden could pardon them, but that would only happen if a) Biden was still president after a failed coup, and 2) the people being pardoned would need to be prosecuted first, which is lengthy, disruptive, and expensive.
This only helps republicans, because as horrible as they are, the one thing they excel at more than their capacity for hate is their ability to unify and work together. Democrats… yeah, ain’t happening.
Because they would all go after Biden.
Dementia. But hopefully one of his handlers arranges for this.
Dems are controlled opposition. How many times do they have to betray you before you learn that.
One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Its not absolute immunity. Its presumed immunity for official acts. Its literally the same rules as always. He can still go to jail if they can prove it.
It was basically the supreme court saying "we aint touching this, you figure it out"
Then you get to prove it wasnt an constitutional act.