"We hold that the petitioner, as a former President of the United States, is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts."
The media, the Democrats, but I repeat myself, have all been lying to you. This has always been the case. Nothing has changed.
This most recent ruling wildly expanded the immunity, added presumed immunity for adjacent actions, and phrased everything in such a way that actually prosecuting the president for literally anything will take years.
Say the president does something you think is illegal and should be prosecuted. Stop. Before you can take him to court over that, you need to determine if what he did was "official" or "unofficial." SCOTUS didn't give deterministic guidelines to differentiate, so you need to have a separate court case just for that. Alright so let's have the court case that determines whether what the president did was official or unofficial. Let's introduce some evidence—
Stop. Evidence from official acts cannot be introduced in a case to prove something was unofficial. So you actually need to have a separate court case to determine if that evidence is official or unofficial. Once you have your results, one party won't like it and will appeal it up and up to the supreme court. Repeat for potentially every single piece of evidence.
Okay now that we know what evidence we can and can't introduce, we can finally determine if what the president did was official or unofficial. Once we have a result, one party won't like it and it will be appealed all the way up to the supreme court again. Only when SCOTUS rules the action was unofficial (IF they rule it was unofficial) can you then BEGIN the process of actually taking the president to court over that action.
This will take years, not to mention the supreme court is appointed by the president and it recently ruled that taking bribes after you do something instead of before is perfectly legal actually. This is all by design. The point is to keep this all tied up in court for years, which effectively gives the president full immunity for everything. And he can also pressure the courts or judges to rule his way via any number of threats (if you think that's an unofficial act, feel free to take him to court over it).
This is pretty clearly designed to functionally protect the president from all culpability (which the dissenting SCOTUS opinions agree on, ergo their dissent).
Before prosecuting a president you have always had to stop and determine if what was done was in an official capacity or an unofficial capacity. It's been like that for 200 years. That's why you can't charge bush 1, bush 2, or Obama with war crimes. Furthermore, the court made their stance on Trump quite clear. They did not dismiss any of his cases. If they were in his pocket, and he had this absolute immunity as you claim, all cases would be dropped.
Folks, it's quite clear what the president can and cannot do. He can pardon, appoint, dismiss, and instruct the military to take actions and has full immunity to do so. Which of course the president must have full immunity for those actions. If you or I send a missle to kill people we would get charged. The president would not.
Moreover, presumptive immunity leaves the door wide open. The ruling says that any action taken with presumptive immunity may be challenged and that the burden is on the government to show that the action was not within the presidents duties, and failed to uphold the constitutional oath taken. If the president blatantly breaks the law that burden of proof would be childish to gather. The president is not above the law, and never was.
You can't charge them for war crimes bc war crime isn't a US law. This didn't exist before and the official unofficial distinction was explicitly created in the ruling. The above post outlines exactly the process now established to block any case, suggesting that because a more ridiculously comically corrupt version of a ruling exist that this isn't it nonsense and clearly demonstrative of your goal to spin propaganda.
Your post is a lie, self contradictory and explicit propaganda. Your account should be blocked and banned.
The thing is, this country has existed for nearly 250 years without this ruling and the president having any sort of immunity. The idea that we suddenly need this is ridiculous. So what changed? Well, Trump of course. And yes, this is all about Trump. This ruling didn't come out of nowhere. It came from Trump making claims about immunity, the lower courts dismissing the claims as nonsense, until the supreme court took it up and here we are.
You locate a terrorist. You just so happen to have a couple guys who can bomb that terrorist. You murder the terrorist. You are charged with murder because the laws of this nation do not allow murder.
Same scenario, but now it's the president. Please tell me what the difference is. Why can the president not be charged with a crime but you can? What would you call that?
It's simple really. It's not murder when someone in the military kills an enemy combatant. Murder is illegally taking another's life, and members of the military can legally kill enemy combatants. That's laid out in the Geneva Conventions and all of that.
The President is the commander in chief, so he doesn't need immunity to order some terrorists taken out. That's the way it's worked for nearly 250 years. Joe Citizen is not a member of the military and is not the president, so generally they can expect to get in trouble for that sort of thing.
The President can order some terrorists killed the same way a fighter pilot can shoot down an enemy plane, a soldier can throw a grenade into an enemy foxhole, or navy captain can order the shelling of an enemy position.
Also note that immunity here doesn't mean something is legal for that person. The act is still just as illegal as it has always been. It just means that the person who has immunity can't be prosecuted for it. And in the case of absolute immunity, can't even be charged for it, unlike things like qualified immunity where someone can still be charged and then can argue immunity as their defense the courts get to decide if it actually applies.
As such, a member of the military doesn't have or need immunity, because what they are doing isn't illegal. That also applies to the president in that sort of situation.
United States of America v. Ramiz Zijad Hodzic et al., United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division, No.4:15CR49CDP/DDN, 9 May 2018
Lawful combatants enjoy “combatant immunity” for acts of warfare, including the wounding or killing of other human beings, “provided those actions were performed in the context of ongoing hostilities against lawful military targets, and were not in violation of the law of war.”
That's a different thing entirely. Members of the US military don't have combatant immunity when it comes to the US legal system, because what they are doing is legal in terms of the law. Combatant immunity would apply if they are captured as a POW by another nation following the Geneva conventions, which basically says that nation can't charge them for acts of warfare, murder, etc. for participating in the war as a combatant. So long as they weren't committing war crimes or something along those lines. So once again the President, as the commander in chief, doesn't need immunity to order an airstrike or whatever, because it's already legal for him/her to do so.
Nope, the real lie was SCOTUS was becoming liberal instead of just making a few liberal rulings here and there. This was used as a battle cry to put in more conservatives, remember the "activists" judges they were wringing their hands about. So now we don't even get a few liberal rulings sprinkled here and there.
Full stop, SCOTUS has always been conservative. History has already proven this
"We hold that the petitioner, as a former President of the United States, is entitled to absolute immunity fromdamages liability predicated on his official acts."
Specifically, immunity from civil damages. The president couldn't be sued by randos claiming he cost them a job or whatever.
No? Can the president be charged with murder for telling the military to drone strike someone? No they cannot, because they are immune. They have to have some immunity in order to execute their duties.
He's pointing out what you posted says damages liability, which means something completely different. Basically means I couldn't have sued Regan for fucking over 90% of the American populous financially. It doesn't mean he has immunity to everything that is an official act. Big difference.
Indeed it does. The president has always had immunity. This is civil immunity. There is also criminal immunity because you can't prosecute the president for ordering the deaths of thousands of people. Unlike say, you know if I was responsible for thousands of deaths. Or even one death. The president must have some immunity to carry out their duty as commander and chief. We have laws against murder. Ever find it funny you can't go after the president for murder? No, you never once considered it.
Can you show me anywhere in the constitution that says you can't, because it is a responsibility of the people according to the constitution for the people to stop them from doing such shit.
Keep being the sheep you want to be. Get down on your knees and bow next.
Me too. Well, I guess I’ll support the dnc anyway and vote for biden/genocide because I prefer trump’s policies with biden’s veneer of politeness rather than trump’s policies with trump’s veneer of impoliteness.
It also works well for the CIA, which has been rescuing Nazis and assassinating leftwing political leaders around the world for decades. Oswald was also working for them. Oh well, back to watching CIA talking heads on MSNBC / CNN / the New York Times / the glorified reddit with extra steps known as lemmy
I wish I lived in your world where people were actually competent.
But in the real world, the CIA, working in Lebanon, used a code word "Pizza" to literally mean, go to the local Pizza Hut for more orders. Hezbollah used their amazing deductive reasoning skills to crack the code, and then just had people watch that particular Pizza Hut. They ended up outing about a dozen highly trained CIA agents and the informants they were meeting with.
In the 60s, these chuckle fucks were too busy secretly dosing each other with LSD to actually get anything done.
Every revolution or regime change that the CIA was involved in ended up a complete clusterfuck. Look at the Bay of Pigs as an example.
The only thing they've ever been good at is smuggling drugs, and they only reason they were good at that is that they could tell the DEA to look the other way.
And there are stories of fuckups from CIA drug smuggling. Like Iran-Contra. The Contra were trading drugs for guns so they could literally run around as right-wing death squads.
Anyway, this is a long rant to say that the CIA wishes they were competent enough to have been behind Oswald. They were not then, and are not now. But they love the PR, and some of them might even believe the bullshit. Doesn't make it true.
Remind me who placed the Shah in power in Iran. Also, please tell me about the coup in Guatemala. Who was running Cuba before the workers/peasants sent nazis like yourself packing?
I'm not saying the CIA doesn't do damage, I'm saying that they're not competent enough to do it on purpose.
The CIA wishes they did even a quarter of the shit people say they do, but are not actually masterminds. Because no one is. No one runs the world, and Color Revolution is made up nonsense.
The CIA cut a deal with a general in Iran to overthrow the government, but that general was already planning the coup before the CIA caught wind of it. But wouldn't you guess, the guy the CIA backed didn't actually win in the end.
As to Cuba, did you know that the CIA tried to kill Castro like 30 times? Some of the attempts read like a Three Stooges routine.
The KGB was just as bad. Their fuckups are less documented because of how controlled the media is in Russia and the USSR before it's fall.
This doesn’t include Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Israel, where the CIA has been heavily involved for decades. They were also very much involved in destroying the USSR, now that you mention it, and happily admit to all of this (in addition to rescuing thousands of high-profile nazis). They’ve also admitted to controlling the corporate media (Operation Mockingbird) and just admitted to pushing anti-vaxx propaganda in the Philippines. Millions of needless deaths can easily be attributed to them. Do you enjoy listening to people who rescue nazis telling you how to think on CNN and in the NYT?
In other words everyone, things are not going according to Liberals/Democrats, so, we need to change the entire structure, Constitution, and political system in America.
There's a fucking Democrat in the position that the Supreme Court just handed a blank check to, and you think they're worried because that aren't getting what they want as opposed to how that power might be abused?
Republicans' stated goal is to change the entire structure and political system in America and the 6-3 ideologically Christian scotus has already begun ignoring the constitution.
This is the very definition of a constitutional and democratic crisis. If democrats don't do something as the only other party with any power, republicans will make sure they no longer have the opportunity the first chance they get.
Now is really not the time for "both sides" logic to prevent democrats from acting.
My god can we get a younger social Democrat please? Fuckin A I'm tired of people born before WW2 ended making all the policy decisions. I was going to say before the moon landing but they were all adults when that happened. They're not even Boomers. They're fucking older than boomers.
Most of America. But they aren't becoming politicians. Mostly because politicians are really bad people for the most part. You get maybe 5 percent that don't have ulterior motives.
If those two ran on a presidential ticket together, the Republican Party would dial up the “it’ll be the end times if they win and only our lord and savior Trump can stop it” to 1000.
The problem is apparently having someone in office that will live long enough to actually reap what they sow. I didn't used to think this would ever be a thing we'd have to be worried about, but, here we are. Environmental issues in particular hit this note I think.
Eh, people, especially the rich, will likely be living longer and longer. Also, only a total sociopath would not care about what their children and grandchildren, etc., have to face. Again, I think the important thing is competency and the policies they support (hopefully backed by evidence if they have a political past). Someone with a few years under their belt is also hopefully more likely to look at the longer span of things, given that they've ideally accrued some level of wisdom.
If someone is 90 and still mentally fit, and socially aware like Bernie would be far more preferable than some spry spring chicken that adores the likes of Steve Miller. Again, I think age is just a number. There is nothing inherently good or bad about someone being young (some younger people seem to be old souls and have a lot more wisdom than the number of times they circled the sun) - or old. IMHO.
I know this country has always worshiped youth, and that's not fallen out of fashion just yet. I just happen to think that's rather dumb.
You've never seen what dementia can do to a person. Or, just the general confusion that comes with age. I'm happy for you, honestly it sucks to watch. Someone who used to know everything suddenly gets confused on the way to a restaurant they've been to a thousand times. Forgets why they called, or even that they called you in the first place. And, importantly, have their opinions flip on a dime with no warning whatsoever.
This isn't necessarily dementia, it can be caused by any number of things, ailments that younger people would brush off without a thought.
You've never seen what dementia can do to a person.
Believe me, I know all too well. I've had a few family members die from Alzheimer's. Losing someone is never easy, but you lose that person long before they pass away and it's heartbreaking.
My point is that age is merely a number. There are people well above the age of Biden and have all their mental faculties.
Why would we have a PM? We already have the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. And the PM wouldn't be able to exercise any executive powers unless you burned the constitution, because separation of powers.
There's not really a good reason to adopt a parliamentary system like the UK's for example if we were to completely reform the government imo. Or to have a PM separate from the president at all.
Honestly, the only problem I really have with Biden is superficial, and it's mostly because most other people are superficial.
This election can only be won by breaking apathy. That takes a confident and strong speaker. Apathetic voters don't watch the news every day. They don't know what Biden is up to. But debates are like the Superbowl of politics, and even is they don't watch the whole game, they won't be able to avoid the highlights.
That performance did not inspire confidence. He was meek and paled next to Trump's booming confident voice. Doesn't matter that he was spewing shit, he sounded good doing it.
Could you imagine Obama doing that? Or Bill Clinton? Hell no. Those guys were popular because they had confidence. They oozed it, but not at the point where they appear arrogant.
Bidens strategy should have been to turn off his speaker whenever Trump talked and just guessing what he said and rebutting that. You can't counter his every point, it takes far more work to dismantle a lie than it is to make one.
I know Biden is smart, I know he's a skilled politician and I know that he's got a hell of a staff and cabinet. And ultimately that's really the biggest criteria for an administration.
I wouldn't mind him tapping out and calling in a pitch hitter though. A stronger and more confident candidate, with Bidens endorsement, could take it. Bernie, but younger. Obama, but white (anything else is sadly a non-starter for too many purple states). Bill, but less pervy. That's what will win the election.
B-B-Bbut I thought Biden was going to stop the fascism? If the vote is for slow descent into fascism and literal fascism, does the vote really matter? There's gotta be something better, man. Very disheartening.
Ok, but to do this, the Dems would need a blowout election in their favor. They would need to retake the House and have a commanding lead in the Senate so that they can get this passed even with a couple turncoats.
If you wrote "King of America: Bernie Sanders" on a ballet, they'd throw the whole thing out? I mean, fair. Ballots are no place for having either fun or opinions :(
(If you mean don't write him in for presidency then yeah obviously but as King?)
The SC sure as fuck wouldn't have given him the power to legally assassinate fascists trying to overthrow democracy on the expectation he wouldn't use it.
I remember arguing with my boomer parents about Sanders when he was winning primaries. I shit you not, my mother looked me dead in the eye and said: "Bernie is too old. We need Biden."
I made that argument too. Something tells me there was something else about Bernie she didn't like. But she was a "lifelong democrat" and "didn't have a problem" with socialism, so... anyone's guess! /s
That's understandable since they are the most popular.
My city's senator called it out on the news and it's not getting any attention from mainstream media.
And remember that it's only been about 48 hours since Biden can legally assassinate anybody so right now, the news is kinda uncertain how to play this out.
They have the luxury of saying things should change without providing an actual plausible path to achieving that change.
AOC championed expanding SCOTUS without worrying about how it could actually be done, or what the consequences would be 10 years down the line.
Bernie does the same. His public statements frequently gloss over the massive hurdles that make such idealistic ideas implausible, like requiring a super majority which is functionally impossible in today's political climate.
To be fair, I do think that it's important that idealists voice how things could be in a political utopia, if they also include a pragmatic breakdown of what it would take.
However, virtue signaling in itself without acknowledging reality is also dangerous.
Lemmy is a perfect example of it. Lots of dissatisfaction with the status quo, and a whole lot of impossible ideas floating around like "there are obvious solutions that establishment politicians just refuse to consider", when they just aren't feasible.
The other side of that coin is that if there is no demand for change, no one will be pressured to work out the logistics required. All change starts with people demanding a solution.
We need a solution right now more than we need a perfect plan of execution. The solution is being called for, to expand the Supreme Court to balance the blatant corruption pouring from the conservative justices. That's the first step
We need a solution right now more than we need a perfect plan of execution.
I agree. But IMO, the proposed solutions don't have a chance in hell of being passed, because of the reality of needing a super majority. Either to impeach a SCOTUS judge, or to reform the SCOTUS rules.
And I think the messaging should focus on the need for a super majority to impeach these corrupt judges, as well as pass reform. The messaging should highlight the republican representatives refusing to cross the aisle to fight this blatant corruption.
And most importantly, highlight what can be done if voters give the Dems a super majority.
Yeah, it's not going to happen, but instead of AOC and Bernie just floating impossible ideas, we need to focus on how voters can give the Dems the power to actually fix these problems. And without that super majority, there is very little that can be done.
Because the current approach makes the Dems seem ineffective and only serves to disenfranchise voters, when we really need to put a fire under voters to put a fire under the Republican half of our government to either cross the aisle or GTFO.
They're feasible with a voter mandate. You get that mandate by building it in your platform and getting elected on it with sufficient margins. The Democratic party, however, is not a revolutionary party but a status quo party and refuses to go that route because they're afraid of losing. So they just lose by default.
It's not too late to pack that fucker. Sinema and Manchin could sit it out while Harris breaks the ties. Judicial nominations do not have the filibuster. If you're looking for a campaign season pick me up, this kind of direct response to SCOTUS going off the rails is something that could do it.
Fucking fight Dems, and you'll get backed up. We're tired of watching you do nothing while the GOP pisses on everything. This would be a great way to demonstrate that a vote for Biden is for more than a neoliberal order controlling a sleepy old man.
The Dems could also get rid of the filibuster right now. Getting rid of it completely only requires a majority and Republicans already proved they will drop it the moment it isn't useful to them to obstruct Dems like they did with judicial nominations.
Fun fact, the Constitution gives authority to make new SCOTUS judges to the Senate and the President. Congress as a whole only has the power to organize courts below SCOTUS. The entire idea that the house can set the size of the court is unsupported.
I thought that eliminating the filibuster took a 3/5th vote in the senate. That's 60 votes. We are nowhere close, though I support holding it to a vote to put it on the record, to highlight the hypocrisy later.
The filibuster is already gone in regards to judicial appointments, The Republicans killed it and the Democrats didn't bring it back. But also, yeah the chamber rules are a simple majority vote. It's Manchin and Sinema keeping that from happening, but also without the house of representatives it's kind of useless to get rid of it right now.
“If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office”
Why do that when they can exploit a shitty system instead? They now are there for the rest of their lives and can interpret the law to mean whatever they want and there is no legal recourse to do anything about it as long as their corrupt party has enough power to prevent impeachment.
Plus they can receive bribes just like politicians too, so the "low" salary (far higher than most people will ever make, but tbf a significant amount of training required to reach that point) isn't an issue.
