The only sane thing to do, full on assassinate, or kidnap in secret and report youve assassinated, all the justices that ruled in favor of presidential immunity. Nominate a new set of justices, with confirmation under threat of further assassinations, bring the case back before the new supreme court to rule against presidential immunity
Yes. Remove the conservative justices, institute new ones, undo all the bad SCOTUS decisions of the last 4 years, implement standards/ethics/accountability laws for the justices, put greater limits on their powers, and then remove the president's "king" status. Also put Trump in jail for life. It is the only way to save this country. Today, democracy in the US is completely gone. It's over.
Personally, I don't care if Trump and conservatives go to jail. It's not like any of their politics is anything more than imaginary white grievance and 4th Reich. They aren't a legitimate political party. They're like one of the few illegitimate political party I can count on my hand and feet.
I think democrats, today, do try to govern. Their attempts often feel like they are just going through the motions. It must be hard trying to do your job when you see everything crumbling around you and you have a reality TV show host threatening to tear down everything you're working on.
If Biden, today, decided he wanted to extra judiciously "save democracy" the democrats would terminate any moral high ground they ever claimed to have. They would see revolt from outside and from within. Their only choice would to be bring everyone to their heel.
We know there is no such thing as a benevolent king. If I had to choose between DNC or GOP dictatorship I'd prob go DNC. Except I've watched the DNC pretend their morals are superior. I watch it as they crush us all for the sake of decorum. To the DNC we are just a wall dressing while they enjoy all the privilege power affords them. Given absolute power, they abandon trying to do the right thing and dictate to us how capitalism is the only way.
Then you're not paying attention. The bills getting passed, the executive orders, and the deals being made are all for your benefit. We can argue about how impactful they are but it's policy that benefits you that isn't a slight to others.
I think they’re doing the bare minimum to say they tried
This is my exact meaning. We have no conflict.
Edit: Please, preach about the genocide in Gaza. Go right ahead, do it here and now. Everyone knows the stakes by this point. Let Gaza be the straw that nosedives america into fascism dejure. The supreme court just enshrined it. The plans are laid. If you can't stomach Gaza you are definitely not prepared for what comes next.
The dissent is in bad faith and should be discarded. The president enjoys no authority to assassinate anyone and therefore enjoys no immunity for doing so. The dissent is not serious and should be treated as such.
Based on the incredible hyperbole written in the dissent. Legal expert turned partisan hack quite quickly when they start talking about assassinations.
Are you still at this shit? Im still waiting on you to provide where in the ruling it specifically addresses not allowing assassinations like you claimed
This response is so weird I can't quite tell what your point is. Are you suggesting that the Iraqis resisted with small arms fire? Because that's not the case.
More US citizens die each year in the US from guns than US soldiers died in the entirety of the Iraq war. And it's not a small difference either - each year 4-5x as many citizens die from gun violence. Not including suicides (which would more than double the number)
So was your post trying to say the small arms resistance in Iraq was effective?
I'm a pacifist and don't want to glorify violence at all but, the 'RA also was very effective at dealing with collaborators and informers. Minority rule cannot sustain itself in the long-term.
When a group of American freedom fighters go to take over a U.S.A. military base and hesitant soldiers aren’t sure if they should follow a traitorous president or their oath to the Constitution, the American freedom fighters being well-armed will make the difference.
We could probably mount a pretty decent resistance with what we have available. look what happened in iraq during the occupation. insurgency would be the way to go in a rebellion against the us govt.
Also the Whiskey rebellion and Union/county wars, but nobody remembers them because they were relatively small. Also a lot of Rednecks especially Boomers and Gen X ended up being fucken bootlickers, sure there are some of us within Gen Z who are trying to revers the damage but well culture rarely moves fast.
Hey now, don't besmirch the name Redneck with those sad sods. The Rednecks fought the good fight at the Battle of Blair Mountain, only to be put down by the US military backing robber barons.
Oh no I agree, I was moreso opining the damage done to Redneck culture as a whole. I may be of the Southern Californian variety and have little to no relations to those fine sons of bitches in the Appalachians but I have nothing but respect for mine distant kin. No I was simply stating that the bootlickers in who were taken advantage of through several points of cultural weakness did a shit tonne of damage. I have had the pleasure of talking to Rednecks of the Greatest generation and Silent generation, theyre no shits given savagery is something I wish I could muster but given the fact at least one of them car bombed one of his bosses and smuggled guns to the IRA I can say that I will never match up. But im still doing better than the Boomers.
Wouldn't this mean a president has an obligation to kill his political opponents if they're seen as a threat to the United States, and as an official act, it would be completely legal? Effectively making one man above the law.
Even if it's not seen as an official act, you can't charge the president while they're in the office, and with that power and a loyal justice department, you could eliminate anyone who might try to argue the legality of your actions.
Good luck convincing anyone to bring a case against the guy who keeps making people disappear when they investigate him.
This + project 2025 & a trump presidency is the end of US democracy. I don't even wanna start thinking about the impacts globally..
Trump could now argue he, as sitting president, was threatened in his functioning by the new president elect, and it was an official act to block the transfer of power as long as the sitting president has concerns about the validity of the votes.
(Ofcourse he always has those concerns)
And now with the coming elections he will claim the same and as a bonus he officially and in the open has the republicans refuse to certify a losing vote because that also threatens his position and impedes his functioning.
If the lower courts now claim his acts were not official he will just appeal that back to the Supreme Court, thereby still delaying any closure of the case well after the elections.
I would rather he just pack the bench to 50 seats, one for each state, fast track nominations, and force congress to stay in session until a full court is appointed by putting hoteling them in the vicinity and only allowing them movement between hotels and congressional chambers. This would be in his power and immune as official acts after all.
You are confusing the United States that existed until this decision with the United States that exists after this decision. As long as it’s an official act, the president can now do whatever it wants. If the supremes court objects, the president and threaten or assassinate the justices as long as it’s an official act. The President is now effectively a king. Read Sotomayor’s dissent in this decision. She explicitly states this.
That's the thing, for the executive branch, passing laws is not an official act. It's outside that branch of government. That's what the Legislative branch does.
It would be like Biden overturning a court ruling. That's the Judicial branch, not your dance.
I get it. This is how government functions according to the constitution. Please understand however, under this new interpretation there is no effective legal check on the executive doing anything at all. Yes, it’s not official for the president to do that, but there is no enforcement mechanism, and the president now has authority to coerce anyone or any institution. I know it is difficult to grasp the implications of that, but that is in fact what the Supreme Court did today.
That's the plan right, that's part of Project 2025, to instantiate Unitary Executive Theory to make everything they do legal regardless of courts and impeachment trials.
So in your opinion, did they just reaffirm something like the presumption of innocence but it's tailored for someone who's job it is to sometimes order the deaths of people? So he has "The presumption of immunity" when making otherwise illegal orders, until it's otherwise determined by a court case, or impeachment hearing? Is that what's going on?
Bear in mind that the drone strikes are less attributed to Trump because he revoked or ignored accountability rules and authorized the CIA and defense department to conduct drone strikes without seeking authorization from the White House.
It’s easy to assume that Trump was ‘better’, but nope. He was much, much worse. He just hid the evidence and delegated the crime to others.
Oh, I never meant to bring Trump into it, just that Obama continued Bush's drone program and in a perfect world it would have all been illegal... but not if the President does it. ;)
The thing that bugs me is how any order given to subordinates is a use of executive power, right? So that’s immune. But say the subordinate considered refusing an unlawful order. Why, then would they decide to refuse the order when the president could also choose to pardon them for any crimes they committed during the execution of the unlawful order?
God, we're so fucked. SCOTUS is turning the Presidency into an autocracy, Biden refusing to get out of the way for a capable candidate...that judge sentencing Trump to jail time in the Stormy Daniels case is basically the only thing that can save us from a right-wing theocracy at this point.
SCOTUS can't do shit for state charges. Doesn't mean they won't try.
However, His legal team will argue literally any punishment is too harsh and appeal the NY state charges, which will be granted because he was a president and has money. Then it will be delayed past the election and not matter anyway because this system is not made to resist willful destruction by those entrusted to protect it.
Edit: Turns out they can. The NY prosecution has agreed to postpone charges less than a day after the ruling. Trump's team asserts that the criminal activities occurred before he was president, but since the evidence was gathered during, he can not be prosecuted. Apparently concealing evidence unrelated to the presidency is an official act...
That's not how Federalism works. The President is not a member of any state government, and has no immunity from state crimes. There's no way to move this case from state court to federal.
The Constitution can't be changed that easily. There's no reason for the State of New York to give up the case, even if it were possible to do. And there's no way to compel it, considering the issue is NY State law.
They cannot currently cancel state charges, but the GOP is trying to change that. It is one of a raft of measures underway. Some are truely frightening, such as using Red State National Guard troops against non-compliant Blue States. Check out Project 2025 - the Republicans are even trying to hide their planned dictatorship.
Wouldn't be that simple. The Stormy Daniels case was about things that happened before he became president. Sure reimbursing Cohen might have occurred at least in part while Trump was president, but Cohen was never part of the administration. They were disguising the reimbursement as paying Cohen in his capacity as Trump's personal lawyer. So there's pretty much nothing that this ruling does to hamper this case.
That said, I have no doubts that they'd find some way to rule in his favor if an appeal managed to land in front of them. But I think he'd have to go through normal appeals first, he can't just go straight to SCOTUS.
Yeah. The Roberts Court has been nothing if not the Court of Post-Hoc Justification. They're great at concocting the most batshit crazy of legal theories to reach the outcome they want after shopping for the perfect cases to do so. I'm absolutely positive that if/when he gets an appeal to reach SCOTUS they'll give him exactly what he wants even if they have to tie themselves in logical pretzels or even directly contradict themselves to do it.
They've pulled that one a lot recently, haven't they? I seem to recall one of the other recent rulings, I think it was against the EPA basically being a hypothetical about a proposed rule they hadn't even actually passed yet?
Where are you getting that? That question wasn't put to SCOTUS.
Trump was charged. Trump claimed he had "absolute immunity", and didn't have to face charges. Court rules against him in this issue; he appealed. Appellate court ruled against him, sending the case back to the trial court. He appealed to SCOTUS. SCOTUS said he doesn't have absolute immunity, and that the limit of his immunity is on his "official acts". SCOTUS then sent the case back to the trial court. The trial court will have to determine whether his actions were "official" or "unofficial".
Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official re-
sponsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the Jan-
uary 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count
the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice
President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s
allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to
take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification pro-
ceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presump-
tively immune from prosecution for such conduct.
What part of that statement is about attacking Congress or subverting the electoral college?
It is certainly within the president's and vice president's responsibilities to determine whether to certify the count. They have to be able to say "no, this should not be certified".
Saying "no" can still be used as evidence of another crime, it's just not a crime in and of itself.
Trying to convince the VP to fraudulently say no to the EC count is the crime. The president and the vice president don't get to pick the next president. The electoral college does. The only legitimate reason the VP could say no to the EC count is if for some reason the count itself were wrong, in which case the VP and Senate should correct it and move on.
That, of course, wasn't the basis for the discussion. Trump was trying to get his fake electors counted, or to at least have Pence declare that he couldn't tell which electors were real.
The mere act of talking to the VP about it is contemplated and by default (according to this ruling) protected. You can't tell the VP to change the electors without talking to him!
Edit:
Obviously the fact that the pres. committed a crime can't be considered as a reason to deny immunity, otherwise it wouldn't be immunity.
The trial court is free to determine that lying to the VP for purposes of committing election fraud does not constitute an official act. The fact that they remanded the decision to the trial court instead of reversing the trial and appellate court is the "exception" you are looking for.
They denied his appeal. Ok? He claimed absolute immunity, they said "No, you only have immunity for your official acts. We aren't going to save you here. The trial court is going to burn your ass."
"The trial court is free to determine that lying to the VP for purposes of committing election fraud does not constitute an official act."
Based on what standard? How could a trial court reach such a decision in a way that won't be overturned?
The Supremos have sent this back to the courts with the message that there's only one way to decide and no plausible way to reach another conclusion that will hold up.
BTW, my Lemmy instance isn't showing replies to your comment, including my own reply, so if it didn't come across, I'm sorry but I don't know what else to try.
People aren't reading the article. They did not rule that he is immune because his acts were official.
They ruled that official acts, and not unofficial acts, convey immunity, and remanded to lower courts to determine whether his acts should be considered official or unofficial.
The problem is that they effectively expanded everything the President does to be an official act, and foreclosed a reasonable inquiry into whether an action is actually official.
They've already said Donny is most likely immune for pressuring Pence to overturn the electoral college. Yeah, they've remanded it to lower court, but it's already clear if the lower court doesn't go the way they want, the Supremos will just flip it.
They gave it absolute immunity. That means there is no way to appeal, to argue, to halt, stop, or sue any act by a president. Even arguing whether or not the act is official would be a type of qualified immunity. Meaning that, if you are the office holder of president, everything you do has carte blanche, de facto legality. Sure, some future court could devise a test for this official vs unofficial distinction, but it means nothing for the near future. Biden is now a monarch with no legal method of stopping whatever he wishes to do, so long as it doesn't explicitly fall outside of the extremely broad powers of the executive as defined by SCOTUS and the constitution. Likewise with any future officer holder.
That's not what they ruled at all. They said there was immunity for official acts, specifically citing constitutional powers like appointing judges, commanding the military and recognizing foreign states. That was honestly never in question. A lot of people are reading this wrong. This was a massive punt, which basically opens up the door for a jury to decide what constitutes an official act.
Hi! I'm a real big dumb dumb, cause I never, ya know, studied law. But I sure do know that with SCOTUS decisions, the dissenting should be read as well, to get the proper context of the decision that the opinion won't state. Sotomayor sums up the majority decision like this, and she's a damn sight more knowledgeable than I could ever be:
The majority makes three moves that, in effect, completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability. First,
the majority creates absolute immunity for the President’s
exercise of “core constitutional powers.” Ante, at 6. This
holding is unnecessary on the facts of the indictment, and
the majority’s attempt to apply it to the facts expands the
concept of core powers beyond any recognizable bounds. In
any event, it is quickly eclipsed by the second move, which
is to create expansive immunity for all “official act[s].”
Ante, at 14. Whether described as presumptive or absolute,
under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official
power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune
from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is
baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence con-
cerning acts for which the President is immune can play no
role in any criminal prosecution against him. See ante, at
30–32. That holding, which will prevent the Government
from using a President’s official acts to prove knowledge or
intent in prosecuting private offenses, is nonsensical.
You should really read it, it's such an important read.
PS: Sorry for formatting, it's copied verbatim from the dissenting pdf
I felt like I must have misread the ruling after seeing all of the articles and comments.
Former presidents also have a “presumption of immunity” for their official acts while in office — but, the court ruled, there is no immunity for “unofficial acts.”
So chutkin is going to decide what acts were official acts and which were unofficial.
But "presumption of immunity" is a weird fucking phrase too because it makes it seem like you can prove they aren't immune? Like presumption of innocence--you start there and work the other way. So presumably(pardon the pun) you can start there with this and work the other way still?
I'd need actual lawyers to make this make sense.
But either way it didn't seem as "carte Blanche presidents can do anything" to me when I read it.
We're waiting at this point for the lower courts to to decide which of Trump's egregious crimes were "official" or not. In the meantime, all his trials get suspended. In January, if he takes office, they will vanish when he becomes a dictator on day one (his words).
Well, fellow Americans. This experiment with democracy was fun while it lasted. Every significant goal of the founding fathers has been systematically thwarted by these Christofascists. We once again have a de-facto monarch.
The consequences of this decision will be dire, and unpredictable. Every law, every right, every freedom can now be undone by an official wave of the president’s hand. Rights to privacy? Gone. Due process? Gone. Bill of Rights? Gone.
No one—democrat or republican—should be happy about this. The right to bear arms is now on the chopping block right along with LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.
Hopefully I’m wrong. Hopefully I’m misreading the situation. But it sure sounds like every right that previously defined us as American people now hinges on the benevolence of our president. Americans can no longer brag about “American freedom.”
And Europe’s next. Another far right puppet of Putin will be elected to run a European country in the next few weeks. Just shows that Europe follows the US in lockstep with a 5 year delay.
If anyone ever doubted that the DNC and the GOP weren't on the same team, just watch as the DNC let this opportunity slip right through their fingers. Access to the greatest political, strategical, minds and they will let this opening wash away into a river of fascism.
It's a play, we are watching theatre. Meant to keep you distracted. Meant to keep you oppressed.
For starters, by spending the last 4 years training a different candidate to beat trump this year.
But failing that, they could absolutely have prevented that disaster on the debate. They knew full well how the rest of America will react to seeing Biden look like that, and I find it no coincidence that it happened directly before The Supreme Court ruled to overturn Chevron and Grant immunity to Trump.
While that is interesting, you realize before the 4 years you mentioned, Trump did everything he's in trouble for doing. He also established the supreme court we have. If Biden randomly died his first 5 months, we still would be in a similar (if not the same) situation. Every person who made this happen, would still have their previously established power. Training someone new would not have stopped this inevitability.
It wouldn't have, that's true. I just feel that it would have been a better circumstance than that we have now. But I think honestly I'm just reaching for copium right now. This entire week was a dark week in our country.
We could all collectively decide to chop the heads off of the elite. We don't need to argue about which capitalist is better every 4 years. There's nothing physically stopping 90% of the country from just overthrowing the other 10% if we really tried together
Just make a balance of what the governments of the last 40 years did. Would the us be worse or better off if those changes had not been made? My opinion is that government is unnecessary. There are enough laws already. If anything really needs to be changed it can be done by referendum. Abolish the government!
Edit: government is the biggest illusion of them all
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Sotomayor’s written dissent explicitly says that this decision makes the US President a king that and can now act with impunity. This is effectively the end of the republic as described by the constitution.
Biden can be the first President since Washington to give back the power to We the People. He needs some official acts that return the power back to We the People. If they're considered crimes by the right wing fascists, don't worry. It would take too long to investigate, prosecute, and hold him accountable. His old age is also a super power!
Biden definitely needs to make a move here, but I don't see that working. There's a difference between "the POTUS is immune from criminal liability", and "the POTUS has the power to alter the government as they choose", at least, there is for a President that isn't going to enforce their changes with violence, which Biden hasn't shown any sign of being.
Perhaps there's a way to swing this new legal freedom in a way that does something like that, I'm not smart enough to figure that out. I do at least know that, if this isn't addressed A fucking SAP, then the US is in some serious trouble.
That all sounds very complicated, there is a much simpler way, in an official act of course, to deal with traitors:
Title 18 §2381. Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, ...
Everything's possible through the magic of drone strikes. "Oh, I can't do that, can I? Well, I'll just call up the ol' reaper team and see what they think. You're going to miss the impeachment hearing, btw, and so will everyone else if they know what's good for them"
"Currently, any act, no matter how illegal, is available to me without repercussions due to this Supreme Court decision. So I am going to fix that. I would like an amendment to be put forth explicitly stating as much, and also would like to have an amendment put in place to establish ethical rules for the Supreme Court and an enforcement method for it. Keep in mind, currently any action I consider part of my duties, including... removing... legislators who vote against Democracy itself, until I have enough of a majority of whoever is left t9 accomplish the same goal. Before that, though, I would like a voting reform to establish rules across the nation to maximize voter participation and remove gerrymandering and other systems to diminish the voting power of any group."
This is how the power could be used for good and to restore our democracy. King Joe needs to do this and then give up the power that Chief Justice Roberts and his corrupt cohorts gave him. He needs to move swiftly or even HYPER EXPEDITIOUSLY.
Accountability for these biased, compromised, and corrupt Justices needs to happen now. Special Ops need to deploy and execute ASAP.
Ok, so biden can officially order the assassination of the right wing supreme court justices and Trump, then appoint replacement judges and lobby congress for a constitutional amendment permanently stripping presidents of their absolute immunity. Since his orders would have occurred while he had immunity, he’d be in the clear, he’d have illustrated the flaw in the ruling, removed a dangerous individual, and prevented future abuses. Win.
There are some democratic politicians that might be interested into taking the offer up, but it isn't public, nor they won't reveal it. Can't name any, but I can imagine at least 1 is out there. On the other side of aisle, we already know Republicans wants to enact the fourth reich and just about all of them wants to execute their political opponents.
He could just dissolve the supreme court, it would be a little easier. I doubt the (current) military would actually carry out any sort of assassination. The military leadership are selected and it is instilled in them to pledge loyalty to the nation, not the president.
We won’t because we’re asleep at the wheel. Don’t worry though, we will finally wake up when Trump enters his third term. It’ll be too late to do anything about it but at least we’ll be awake.
So Biden should just shoot Trump... Let the courts decide if it's an official act or not, delay delay, appeal to the supreme Court like all these decisions will be, and Biden may have shrugged of this mortal coil by the time all that happens
Sorry, I mean fake as in not where the justices live. I'm pretty sure someone just took random addresses from vaguely around where the justices live and put them on there, I think the residents are just random fellows
Edit: Google searching has proven inconclusive in my quest for the truth, but there are articles claiming those are their addresses so I could be wrong. But people online keep saying the information is outdated by 1-2 decades and wrong (like this Redditor) so idk.
