Local man shocked that when criminals are politicians, their political opponents want them prosecuted for their crimes, especially when the crime involves overthrowing democracy.
It's AOC. She is literally Marjorie Taylor Green, but on blue team. Asking her opinion on something like this, you are going to get a very predictable answer. She is a political zealot.
For once, I just want Democrats to take a fucking bold brazen move. Seriously. This is why Democrats never control the narrative because they're always too gun-shy to do the right thing and stand by their own beliefs.
Ditch the 81-year-old clearly suffering cognitive decline; run what would be a viral media frenzy that is an open convention and an American Idol contest for the American people.
Or fuck it: AOC will be old enough to be President this year. Even if she can't get the nomination, she should start campaigning literally today until 2028, just like Trump does.
Edit: Sorry, going to move this to the top of the thread because it's too important:
Before going forward, let me be clear: I want to be convinced that we're not fucked. I really do. The past three days I've gone into detail about how I think we're fucked and looking for anyone to make a sound, data-driven argument that shows we are not. I've yet to be convinced by one, and bear in mind I voted for Biden once and would vote for a corpse if it meant preventing the convicted felon getting keys to the WH again.
There is ample evidence that a not insignificant amount of swing voters either saw past the old man voice to what he was actually saying and standing for, as well as recognized how badly Trump did, even though literally everyone only focuses on Biden, just like always.
Please show me these! Because these are all the surveys I've so far seen:
To me I view it as a known loss versus a known risky chance. At this point, personally and given all the data I've thus far presented, I am that convinced that we will lose. Polling shows people deeply unsatisfied with the current candidate. I think critical swing-state voters would just be happy to vote for a fresh face that is younger. Like Mehdi Hasan said, "Americans like new shit."
So I don't know how how you can say with a straight face that Biden is more successful while simultaneously dodging the obvious fact that there is a significant decline in physical and cognitive performance. So let's recap:
We can downplay all we want, but this wasn't "one bad debate," for it wasn't even about the debat eitself but the revelation of Biden's senility piercing through echo-chambers. For the exact same reason Biden ASKED for this debate to reach important voters and show he's mentally fit (akin to the SOTU) and show Trump is not, it backfired 100% and there will not be another chance to reach 50 million voters at prime-tme. Trump has no obligation to take another debate; ending on that note is all that is needed.
Biden took this debate because he is currently losing and needed to break the stagnant, steadily-declining polls.
Biden's performance is worse than his 2020 run and in fact, worse than Hillary's losing run in 2016 by every single metric I can find.
There is a MASSIVE amount of risk that Biden's condition deteriorates more rapidly between now and November, and following the convention there is no more backing out.
If I was a Republican strategist, I'd be doing everything in my power to keep Biden in the race because I know he'd be the weakest opponent compared to a fresh, younger face. Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, even former Obama/Biden staffers from PSA clearly agree.
Now if you agree with this and you say, "okay I see your points, but how can anyone else do better?" then we'll move on to that.
While I understand what you mean, we also have to recognize that doing that would 100% give trump the election. Splitting the votes is not what we want to do.
With all due respect if we're speaking in terms of certainty, I am 100% certain that Biden will give Trump the election—and I guarantee I have more evidence to support that statement than anyone does to the opposite conclusion. Staying this course is a disaster in slow-motion. The Titanic already hit the iceberg and now we're just sinking for 4 months straight. We either jump ship now, or we are going to lose, or we start gearing up for 2028 now.
I completely disagree. While the debate felt disastrous, there is ample evidence that a not insignificant amount of swing voters either saw past the old man voice to what he was actually saying and standing for, as well as recognized how badly Trump did, even though literally everyone only focuses on Biden, just like always.
The worst possible thing we can do right now is just jump ship this close to an election. Biden has one bad debate, and is fine the day after(another thing people conveniently love to ignore) and we're just supposed to restart. What if the new candidate does poorly at the second debate? We just pick another person again?
Biden beat Trump last time. Trump has only grown weaker and lost support, while Biden has been extremely successful. Everyone is upset about the debate performance, but it will not be even close to as impactful as people are convincing themselves it will be.
Before going forward, let me be clear: I want to be convinced that we're not fucked. I really do. The past three days I've gone into detail about how I think we're fucked and looking for anyone to make a sound, data-driven argument that shows we are not. I've yet to be convinced by one, and bear in mind I voted for Biden once and would vote for a corpse if it meant preventing the convicted felon getting keys to the WH again.
There is ample evidence that a not insignificant amount of swing voters either saw past the old man voice to what he was actually saying and standing for, as well as recognized how badly Trump did, even though literally everyone only focuses on Biden, just like always.
Please show me these! Because these are all the surveys I've so far seen:
To me I view it as a known loss versus a known risky chance. At this point, personally and given all the data I've thus far presented, I am that convinced that we will lose. Polling shows people deeply unsatisfied with the current candidate. I think critical swing-state voters would just be happy to vote for a fresh face that is younger. Like Mehdi Hasan said, "Americans like new shit."
So I don't know how how you can say with a straight face that Biden is more successful while simultaneously dodging the obvious fact that there is a significant decline in physical and cognitive performance. So let's recap:
We can downplay all we want, but this wasn't "one bad debate," for it wasn't even about the debat eitself but the revelation of Biden's senility piercing through echo-chambers. For the exact same reason Biden ASKED for this debate to reach important voters and show he's mentally fit (akin to the SOTU) and show Trump is not, it backfired 100% and there will not be another chance to reach 50 million voters at prime-tme. Trump has no obligation to take another debate; ending on that note is all that is needed.
Biden took this debate because he is currently losing and needed to break the stagnant, steadily-declining polls.
Biden's performance is worse than his 2020 run and in fact, worse than Hillary's losing run in 2016 by every single metric I can find.
There is a MASSIVE amount of risk that Biden's condition deteriorates more rapidly between now and November, and following the convention there is no more backing out.
If I was a Republican strategist, I'd be doing everything in my power to keep Biden in the race because I know he'd be the weakest opponent compared to a fresh, younger face. Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, even former Obama/Biden staffers from PSA clearly agree.
Now if you agree with this and you say, "okay I see your points, but how can anyone else do better?" then we'll move on to that.
Yes, beset by a mountain of conflicting interests and decades of infighting and ideological purity testing. Most Democrats are terrified of taking stances on wedge issues because any stance they take could break up a coalition that has all the durability of a Faberge egg. Republicans either don't have this problem, or they don't have it as bad. Despite having as many if not more factions than the Left, they all value loyalty and in-group cohesion, which allows them to come together every 4 years to form a unified voting bloc.
Fear and Hatred run the Republican Party, and unites them.
You have idiot outliers like the Log Cabin republicans who, for whatever fucked up reason (its money. its always money) chose to align themselves, and you'll have the occasional group break away briefly from the groupthink.
But when it comes to the polls, they are a pretty unified bloc.
I'll be honest, Linkerbaan — and you may know this from our previous discussions — I can even see the high-stakes situation with Israel and not like it but understand why in the grand scheme of politics (AIPAC, Jewish American voters, and the risk of withholding arms and then a false-flag terrorist attack occurs on Israeli soil, only to cause an immediate end of Biden's campaign and an installation of someone FAR more pro-genocide).... But nevertheless, your point raises something I think we can both agree on: Ditching Biden also helps, as Mehdi Hasan has pointed out, ditch the baggage of Israeli genocide complicity.
I don't believe witholding offensive weapons would risk anything.
I agree with you about AIPAC. But playing their corrupt games does not excuse anything. If Biden wanted he could ban AIPAC.
It's like people are admitting that israel controls America and are just fine with it. I'll never understand it.
Progressives don't differ between Biden or Trump. Genocide is Genocide. Biden is getting all the flak simply because he's in power right now and he's the one who can stop the Genocide. It would be very convenient if Trump was in power for Democrats right now. Everyone would rally against Trump for doing what Biden is doing now.
The moment Biden stops the Genocide is when I'll stop dunking on him every 5 seconds. I've stated that... Eight months ago... Sad reality.
Of course the Kremlin, and Israel as well as other state actors are; but the obvious question then becomes — what is the Biden campaign actually doing to offset that effect? They are losing the battle and time is running out.
Small clarification, Nate is no longer part of 538. He got laid off by ABC out of nowhere a year or two ago. He does his own thing, 538 has a different person at the helm for the model (Morris).
If you look at 2020 and 2021 was when the most violence was, and that was almost all from the left. I dont really know what part of that doesnt make sense.
It's irrelevant to the topic of politic parties. One party is eroding US democracy för seemingly the sole purpose of fattening their owners, the fossil fuel industry, and the other party wants to pretend this isn't happening.
Outside of violence, the left side is also the side trying to destroy the system that makes all of our lives better. And no, the right isnt the only one giving handouts to the large corporations.
Better than what will actually happen- fail to use powerful new tool for presidential oppression, watch the other side use it, surprise pikachu, hand wringing, impotent mewling, get sent to death camps for failing to salute your neighborhood God emperor proxy fast enough.
It's never fine, but at this point we're just arguing over which direction the national corpse collapses. Insurrection is more what happened before this point.
This isn't really anything new since whenever executive orders became a thing. With executive orders, a president can start a war or force the entire population to stay home or wear masks in public. I think it's way too much power and needs to be scaled back big time. But here we are anyway.
It's funny you say how insurrection is fine when one side does it meanwhile January 6th was a literal coup attempt that has been downplayed by every politician involved.
All those present are given slaps on the wrist while the masterminds behind it remain in power with no repercussions whatsoever to the point the main leader of the coup was just given fucking immunity to commit domestic terrorism and act like a fuckin king.
So yeah it would be perfectly fine if Biden called for the assassination of not only Trump but every current sitting scotus member and whatever congressman he deems fit for execution.
I'm a little confused. Isn't their ruling just a deferral back to lower courts?
They didn't grant him absolute immunity, they just reaffirmed the incredibly broad language in Article II Section 3 of the Constitution.
They're not giving him immunity for everything he did as president, they just aren't interested in being the authority that decides what is or isn't an "official act". They are letting lower courts decide that.
If there's something I'm missing here, I would love to know, but it feels like people are misunderstanding this decision en masse.
It allows for immunity to any "official acts" by the president while they are in office and does not define what an "unofficial" act would be. So if an action is challenged from the lower courts it'll end up at the supreme court where they will deem it official or unofficial.
Which brings the onus of dethroning a king president up to the Congress to impeach them. Which has never happened. However, we have impeached a supreme court justice in the past.
This, to my understanding, is how things already worked. We've just never had to draw the line before because we haven't ever had to charge a former president with a crime. My understanding is that the SCOTUS refused to draw the line, not that they granted the office of president absolute immunity.
They did rule that you can't question a president about his motivations or reasons for any particular act when determining whether it was official or not. Only whether the act itself qualifies as official or not, regardless of the reason behind it.
I think the Dems are trying to spin this as another item in the "war for Democracy" when really it's just the SC re-affirming the constitution. It's also very conveniently timed to detract attention from the growing calls for Biden to step down after his less than ideal debate performance.
When an item gets put onto the political agenda list, it becomes polarized and if you are on Party A or Party B you immediately support or reject it based on affiliation with little thought.
Can we also acknowledge how horrible reporting is on major cases and rulings? I've seen barely any coverage of Loper Bright and what the headlines say about it is largely inaccurate.
This is standard campaigning strategy. If the news cycle is bad for your candidate, try to refocus the narrative. Now people aren't talking about Biden's age but the SC decision.
They're making a bigger deal about it than it actually is in order to better their chances for campaign.
I don't see the conspiracy in this, it's standard stuff.
So, the Biden administration had the majority conservative Supreme Court rule that Presidents are immune from prosecution. Obviously, Biden is hiding his power level. /s
You're not understanding me. I'm not claiming he orchestrated this decision. I'm saying his campaign is using this decision as an opportunity to deflect attention away from the concerns around his age that erupted after the debate.
Never let a good crisis go to waste and all that. Am I speaking Greek?
They're making a bigger deal about it than it actually is
If, however, the court’s decision frees future presidents to act in corrupt, even criminal ways, then the “rule for the ages” articulated in this opinion will have a major impact upon the separation of powers among the three branches of government, potentially giving far more power to the president than has been the case throughout American history. That will have huge implications for the functioning of the presidency and the stability, if not existence, of American democracy. source
It’s a big deal. Of course Biden would rather talk about the case, it undermines the entire democracy. His age will continue to be a focus of the election, Republicans will not let it go.
I've read a couple of the majority opinions and dissenter opinions
The president already had presumptive immunity for official acts. This basically just reinforces the precedent and sets up a framework for determining official vs unofficial.
Nothing about this ruling fundamentally changes Trump's position except that he has the option of claiming he was "acting officially" for example during Jan 6th. Then it will go up to USSC and they will determine the specifics case by case
Why does it not matter as much as it seems? Because a president already had presumptive immunity for official acts before.
Yes, it's important. But it's not the end to democracy. It essentially creates a check against the executive branch by the judicial branch. And honestly, I'm OK with that considering how powerful the executive branch is.
Biden's campaigners don't care about any of that. It's their job to get people to vote. They don't care about the truth. I get it, I would do the same thing in their position.
Everybody talking about replacing you because of your terrible debate performance? Blast the "End to democracy" tagine as loud as you can so that news cycle changes.
It worked like a charm, I think it was a good strategic move
So what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of, first of all, that people don't recognize what a big deal this is. This isn't an adjustment in the law. This is a change in our entire constitutional system. It says that there is one of the three branches of government that cannot be checked by the other two.
And I don't think that people necessarily understand what that means. And all you have to do is look to any authoritarian country. Look, for example, right now in Hungary, where Viktor Orban is busily taking control of other countries' companies that are within his country, because he can do that now. He's not checked by the courts.
Look at Vladimir Putin's Russia, for example, where he can simply throw his people into the maw of a meat grinder in that war because they can't say no. We have just — our Supreme Court has just done the same thing. sourceHeather Cox Richardson
You're getting downvoted because Lemmy, but that's more or less how I read the ruling as well. They ruled very specifically in a way that let them punt on all the other questions these trials have created.
That's like letting your oldest kid do whatever he wants, and after punching your other two little kids and eating their candy you let him figure out if he should be punished and you let him punish himself.
I guess I just don't understand Sotomayor's response. She says that Trump got the immunity he asked for, but that's not true. He was asking for everything he did as president to be considered an "official act", and they deferred to the lower courts.
It doesn't appear that anything actually changed. I am assuming I am wrong on that, but none of the articles I have read so far have answered that question. There are just a lot of assertions that he was granted absolute immunity, which doesn't match the language of the court's opinion.
I would have preferred that they draw a line on specific acts not being considered "official acts", especially as we draw the line between Trump's presidency and his 2020 reelection campaign. I'm just not seeing a lot of honest discourse as to what this decision actually means from a legal perspective.
What it does set up though is an official legal stand to say that the supreme Court gets to decide what's "official". Meaning they can decide that all Trump's actions are official and all of Biden's (or whatever dem president) are not
This was already the arrangement. That's why Trump was even at the Supreme Court. He was asking for them to decide that everything he did as president was an "official act". They gave the right to decide that back to the lower courts, where it could theoretically come back to them with a more specific set of actions that they need to decide upon.
Of course, the idea that the SCOTUS is corrupted to the point that they would protect Republicans and sabotage Democrats is a worth discussing, but that seems like a wholly different issue that we allowed the highest court in the country to be corrupted by overt partisanship.
It doesn't seem so much that the claim is that the SCOTUS gave Trump immunity, but that nobody trusts the court system to draw that line to begin with.
The American justice system works on the idea of precedence. Cases have ruling decisions and the interpretation of the law that comes from those decisions becomes law. It wasn't clear before the ruling because there was no precedent. Now the precedent that has been set that going forward, the supreme Court (currently politically motivated to the right) will have final say over whether or not a sitting or former president may be tried and prosecuted for decisions they made or actions they took in office. What would have been the correct thing to do with the least political implication (the supreme Court is meant to be free from political biases) would have been to define what actions are illegal according to the law. But they didn't want to define actions as legal or illegal, they want the ability to justify them making case by case judgements which give them the opportunity to push their aforementioned bias.
I think your confusion is warranted, because it's not clear how SCOTUS' decision is different from what the Constitution comes right out and says. On the surface, it does seem to just reaffirm what we already know, and maybe the liberal justices are just whinging.
The trick is that they did it in a way that causes a lot more work in the courts. In turn, that means Trump's trials get delayed further.
Nobody sane is going to argue that getting a hostile crowd to surround and storm the capitol while an important procedural vote is taking place is an official act of a President. But now it has to be ruled on, specifically, and that's one more thing to add to the pile before the obvious verdict can be reached.
Trump's lawyers have already filed an argument in the hush money case that certain points of evidence should be removed because they were official acts. If so, that would potentially result in a mistrial, and so the only Trump criminal case that went forward would have to be redone.
What worries me is that if is the case that the liberal justices are just whinging, then we're in even deeper shit, because that would suggest that the liberal justices are making decisions directly in the context of restraining the threat of a future Trump presidency, and that means every single member of the SCOTUS has abandoned being an impartial constitutional judge...
I would have preferred that they draw a line on specific acts not being considered "official acts", especially as we draw the line between Trump's presidency and his 2020 reelection campaign. I'm just not seeing a lot of honest discourse as to what this decision actually means from a legal perspective.
Well, that's exactly the problem that has everyone up in arms here. They have made this ruling but conveniently failed to rule on what constitutes an "official" act. Therefore whenever a major ruling has to be done about this, they can decide at that time whether an act was official or not based on what flavor of president they're ruling for or against, and until then the lower courts can take the heat off the SCOTUS directly by just ruling that everything Trump has ever done is legal because he was president once.
It's a very transparently partisan ruling, setting the stage for further partisan ruling in the future by being extremely vague about what their ruling actually is. This ruling boils down to "the president is allowed to do anything he wants when we say so, and is subject to rule of law only when we say so, and whether we say so will be determined after the acts in question." In this way the conservative-packed supreme court can easily enable a conservative president or trap a liberal one.
They’re not giving him immunity for everything he did as president, they just aren’t interested in being the authority that decides what is or isn’t an “official act”. They are letting lower courts decide that.
That's pretty much what they did but that's not how it's being presented by the media so you've got 30,000,000 people all riled up and ready to riot. I would have preferred if SCOTUS found a way to definitively settle this without the Remands but I understand why they did it.
The lower court will take about an hour to decide that this stuff was "unofficial" and write the legal narrative supporting that. Hell I'd be shocked if it wasn't already done. This isn't even close to over.
She wont be able to do anything. The reason supreme court decided to move forward with this decision is because they are 100% confident that Trump will win presidency and republicans will control both the house and the Senate. After seeing Biden in the last debate, I believe they are right.
Or — just maybe — the guy is able to judge reality for what it is. We’re getting trump unless there’s some black swan. I’m voting Brandon, but he’s a fucking disaster right now and the swing state polls are grim as fuck. Best case scenario he fucks off to the next life and we get a new nominee.
Before you accuse me of wanting trump, check my fucking comment history.
I'm going to vote for Biden. I will vote for a used condom before I vote for Trump. But it is my opinion that we already lost the election. We must point fingers and hold the responsible parties accountable, otherwise we will make the same mistake again and again and again...
Biden has dementia! I have seen it with my two eyes. My father was diagnosed with dementia 3-4 years ago and my father is Albert Einstein compared to Biden right now. DNC and establishment Dems have been lying to us! All in order to push a corporate backed establishment president down our throats. We could have younger and more able presidential candidate if DNC acted accordingly 2 years ago. I'm too fucking pissed off to bite your "calling DNC on their bullshit will turn you to a trump supporter" line!
I am aggressively attacking DNC and all of their astroturfing on Reddit and here because I am 100% confident that we lost the election already.
The Supreme Court must be impartial regardless of legislative and executive political mudslinging of the time. That's the whole point of different branches of government.
If SCOTUS made the decision after seeing Trump and Biden debate, or knowing Republicans will control both houses, then they aren't doing their job as they should. There's a reason why juries are encouraged not to watch TV or media that would cloud their decision, and the same should apply to judges.
People forget the bloody whole point of checks and balance!
I'd be okay with a violent one. Drag the justices out and tar and feather them. They want to make this country great again? Fine. Let's show them what made it great: vigilante justice against tyranny.
The Supreme Court must be impartial regardless of legislative and executive political mudslinging of the time.
then they aren’t doing their job as they should.
There were times in my life when I was pretty much a functioning alcoholic. If you think that the supreme court has even a shred of decency left, then I want to drink what you are drinking. I don't think I ever got that drunk it my life.
They didn't forget: they explictly and knowingly realized they could abuse the checks and balances and there would be no consequences. And they have so far been right.
It breaks my heart to say this but my father was diagnosed with dementia few years ago and he has been battling dementia ever since then. Before we insisted on taking him to the doctor, we could see a lot of signs that made us think "can it be that?". My father is Albert Einstein compared to Biden at the debate.
If you think "Biden just had a bad night" or "He just had a cold" then I regret to inform you that is copium and you are coping. There is no fucking way in hell that was just one bad night or cold. There is no fucking way in hell his cabinet or DNC has not been aware of these issues for at least couple years.
As my father's doctor explained us, there is no cure for this. He will continuously get worse no matter what. What we are trying to do with all these drugs is to slow down his progress, so his natural end of life happens before his quality of life totally disappears.
Fuck man, this is such hard thing to bear and type out.
Maybe the Supreme Court knows something we dont.... for example some folks on the electoral college having been promised bribes... I mean "gratuities" for voting Trump in no matter what the popular vote is.
I'm not saying that's definitely happened, but at this rate the corruption in our government has gone so far it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Especially with the absolute crock of shit that's been pouring out of the Supreme Courts rulings and how it's conveniently setting them up for this, or something similar.
