Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.
So like, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I’ve been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.
The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.
I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?
This ruling was made for trump.
Think of how much trump has done, legally, questionably legal, and illegal, while in office.
Now remove accountability for any of it while ignoring the virtually Sisyphean task already faced to prosecute what he’s (and those surrounding him have) already done, and we have yet to see any sufficiently deterrent sentence being passed.
Now also imagine the arguing over what constitutes “official” acts, you bet your ass that one side is going to be perfectly happy to “officially” let trump shoot someone on 5th avenue.
This strips trump and those like him of the merest inconvenience of facing charges when they leave office. If they leave office.
It’s potentially disastrous on multiple levels.
I an not even American and even I am pissed at that dumb ruling.
And what is even more annoying is that I read that what is considered an official act is not clear, so a court will need to decide if an act was official or not, and that court will be the SCOTUS.
So they could easily decide that acts Biden performed was not official, but the same acts performed by Trump was official, and invent some crap about context being different in som complex way, so with this ruling they have moved the power from the POTUS to the SCOTUS while POTUS stays the fall guy.
SCOTUS
POTUS
FLOTUSUsing these instead of just “the Supreme Court” and “the President” seems so weird as someone not from the US
I wonder who killed JFK. Yeah it was Bush Senior and his ilk. Those responsible for the business (biznuss) plot by fascist scum in the 30s to coup d’etat the American government then. If it was not for Smedley Butler being the person they tried to get to lead this failed coup, and him going to congress instead to lead their army of hundreds of thousands… history would be VERY different.
This link is a link to one of Americas greatest heroes, in my opinion. I hope he rests in peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
This link has a picture of the most ruthless killers in history all together cozy as a family, being two faced little biatches & fleecing the American people with wedge issue politics where people morally feel they need to choose a side (abortion, gun control, social issues like LGBTQ rights etc), instead of the American people uh, focusing on the economic side of things . https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/the-story-of-the-viral-photo-of-the-presidential-families.html
Biden has no balls. He should take one for the team and order the execution of SCOTUS. Either he gets prosecuted or he’ll put an end to this nonsense by force. Even if he gets prosecuted he’s old as fuck he’ll never see prison.
Just throw the six that voted for immunity in prison for treason. A fate worse than death
Easily proved. Especially if you bring it in front of what’s left of SCOTUS.
But then Biden is a dictator too. It’s fun to dream about revenge but it always hurts the wrong people in the end.
Just the once though. Then balance/expand the SCOTUS. Give the Republicans a few to make it fair. Vote to overturn, and forget it ever happened. Logical people can’t get that upset that the only thing he did with his new king powers is do what it takes to save democracy
At this point, we need someone to seize the reins long enough to save us. And then put them down.
Careful, this is the exact mantra of the right. They just want a little dictatorship to get things back in line and then things will go back to normal.
SPOILER: it won’t
Isn’t that the exact story of The Phantom Menace?
History says it never, ever, works like that.
It tells of many examples of when people thought it was a good idea…
Roman dictators did exactly that, though
Not saying their system was perfect by any means but people out here acting like there’s 0 historic examples are just wrong
Yeah, that’s a perfect example of how awful things can get. A slave driven economy … and society full off ancient bullshit and death and strife and murder and horrific genocides… if you’re holding up the Roman empire as a good thing for people…well, I’m not going to convince you of much.
They’ve had great marketing since though… Especially the holy Catholic Church who has just the BEST history of being so great, like I think Epstein’s greatest blunder was not being a Catholic. They would have protected him much better.
I haven’t seen anyone defend it. Closest to that was someone saying it seems vague in a few places. I think it’s a pretty good heuristic that if you can’t find anyone to argue the negative, the positive is probably true.
That said I didn’t look so hard because I’m not American and got other shit to do. Good luck you crazy bastards.
It is extremely concerning. We no longer have three separate branches of government acting as a system of checks and balances.
Especially with Project 2025 (day one after the election of the next GOP candidate). The executive branch will no longer be controllable by the other two branches. Also, Schedule F will allow all “policy-related” government workers to be rescheduled as fireable employees, allowing the Prez to install loyalists throughout the entire government. It’s definitely time to freak the fuck out.
Anyone who wants to see it https://www.project2025.org/
If you read the PDF that they gave it’s terrifying. Talking about applying to be a Loyalist and only they get federal appointments…and replacing real people in the government.
It’s one more piece of Project 2025.
Trump is the side-show. Stop getting distracted by his fat orange ass. The disorganized, played more golf and gave more bad speeches than any President before him is just a side show. Most of the executive branch jobs that go with the administration each election were left empty in 2016.
Project 2025 is an organized, focused Trump term where the machinery runs for him. Where the mechanics of what to do have been thought out and planned for since 2020. Where he can sit on a gold toilet and truly let other people handle the day to day.
And just sign it all with presidential immunity.
So unless cardiovascular disease does it’s fucking job in the next 4 months (yeah, that’s right, the self imposed I don’t want to deal with it time warp you’re in let you forget that it’s just 4 months away), and bad COVID comes back and hits the SCOTUS hard, it’ll be SCOTUS 2.0 for the entire executive branch of the government come 2025. And like a SCOTUS vote, that 2:1 vote in our entire government will be in favor of authoritarian Christian nationalism. That’s what the the SCOTUS vote on immunity is. It’s not about Trump. It’s about authoritarianism going forward.
High odds on Project 2025 because I know you fuckers under 40 won’t be voting in the numbers boomers or GenX do. You’ll stock up on the steam summer sale, maybe get a Costco crate of cool ranch, tuck in, and try to pretend it’s not happening instead.
Yea, it sucks, but the vote is basically Kamala or Trump. No or yes on Project 2025. And if project 2025 goes in, America really is dead and shit is going to get violent.
Not sure another play through of Mass Effect Legendary or BG3 is going to be able to block that out this time.
Good time to remind people that a higher proportion of millennials and gen z voted in mid-term elections than baby boomers or baby boomer babies (gen x) did at equivalent ages.
Millennials voted in the last presidential election at a rate that represents the highest level of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18. Gen Z seems poised to do something similar, as this will be the first presidential election where a majority of Gen Z will be old enough to vote.
Additionally, gen x is the only generational cohort that voted LESS in the last mid term elections than the one before it, i.e., participation in elections declined for that cohort. I guess they were too busy… idk, doing whatever gen x does instead of voting.
This whole post is just one long “the kids are the problem because of their phones and video games,” but I’m pretty sure the most politically active youth generations in modern history aren’t ruining democracy by playing video games.
Anyway. Basically what I’m saying is: ok boomer. Oh well, whatever, nevermind, right?
Lol, not a boomer.
All I hear is I can’t vote for this asshole because Israel. Or, I’m not doing this (Trump and Biden) again.
And games are everyone these days. From boomers to high schoolers. Granted, I think the number of boomers is likely less than all the rest. I’m sure Steam is doing a hefty sales level from GenX on down.
And there absolutely is a time warp of avoidance in general. Even the media has less energy for the election crap of late.
Oh, bonus, sentencing for trump is being delayed until after the election.
Millenials are old now. We’re not “the youth”, we’re like mid-30s to early 40s.
Four years ago, when the last presidential election occurred, the millennial age range was 24-39. Beyond that, I’m comparing generational participation in elections at particular ages.
Further, not all of Gen Z will be of voting age for this election, so the youngest generational cohort where all members of that cohort are able to vote is still millennials, i.e., millennials are the youngest generation able to fully participate in elections.
I’m not saying millennials are all “young,” I’m saying that in terms of electoral participation statistics, they’re the youngest generation able to fully participate, and that compared to when Gen X and Boomers were going, Gen Z and Millennials participate (and have participated) at higher rates than the generations above them.
This is contrary to the subtext of the Boomer Lite (Gen X) poster to which I’m responding that implies younger generations are too busy distracting themselves with their phones and video games to participate in politics.
It seemed really obvious to me that he was talking about actual youth, ie Zoomers. But you started throwing a bunch of statistics about millenials.
Millenials are a politically active generation. The fear is that Zoomers are not. That was the point I got from his comment.
As I said, Gen Z has, so far, participated in the elections they’ve been eligible for at higher rates than any previous generation since the age of voting was made 18, including millennials.
The youngest of Gen Z is currently about 12 years old, so they’ve had less elections to participate in with a smaller percentage of their generational cohort able to participate. Nevertheless, so far, a higher percentage of eligible Gen Z voters have voted in elections than Millennials, Boomers, and Boomers Lite.
The youngest generational cohort that are all above the voting age are millennials, which have also voted at higher rates than Boomers and Boomers Lite at similar ages.
Nevertheless, so far, a higher percentage of eligible Gen Z voters have voted in elections than Millennials, Boomers, and Boomers Lite.
…compared to previous generations at that age.
Youth turnout is still abysmal, it’s just less abysmal than previous generations.
K
You are right to be concerned. If this is not reversed soon and with a bang, the USA would either be in a civil war or start WWIII in the next 5 years
Nah man, this is very concerning. You don’t need to calm down; I think everyone else is too fuckin calm about it.
What I want from anyone supporting this decision is a single example of a situation where the President would need to break the law in an official capacity. I want just one. I’ll not get it, but I’m gonna keep demanding it.
The king of Sweden has a similar exemption from the law, but he also doesn’t hold any political power. I also don’t know how waterproof his status is if he did something heinous enough.
Trump already has done heinous stuff.
Trump has already been convicted of felonies.
Boggles the mind how one can be a convicted felon and still be in the race, but if you’re in prison you can’t vote.
I think prisoners and excons should be able to vote. But it’s definitely important to have people be able to run from prison. See Eugene Debs, Nelson Mandela, and others.
I would love for prisoners to be able to vote actually. I mean aside from the part time slavery they endure they’ve got pretty much nothing but time. Time they could study the candidates and think about the issues.
This is a fair point I hadn’t considered!
But SCOTUS just made a ruling which states that some of the evidence used to convict him is inadmissible.
Just because he made those comments while in office. Because somehow lying about paying off porn stars to win a second term is protecting the American people and thus part of his official duties. Go figure.
US justice system is f*cked.
The king of Sweden doesn’t control the most powerful military in the world.
He doesn’t control much of anything, actually!
Yup! There’s also the fact that kings usually tend to at least care about their country’s welfare somewhat. Republicans don’t give a shit about anything but money, power, and theocracy.
Theocracy is a mean to money and power.
True, but there are true believers in there that actually believe Jesus is coming back and such.
I suppose some do, sometimes I wish they were right and that they would j just get raptured already. No need for a new Kingdom and tons of massacre, just come and take them.
Capitalists. Capitalists are bipartisan, and that’s why Biden is doing this big nothing.
a single example of a situation where the President would need to break the law in an official capacity.
I definitely don’t support the ruling but Obama has ordered drone strikes that killed children. Does that mean Obama should stand trial for murder? I think the idea is that the president is given the authority to do things most people can’t, and because of that, they can’t be held to the same standard as other people, at least while using that authority.
There really aught to be a line though. There can’t be blanket Immunity on every single presidental act no matter what. Ordering the assassination of the al-Qaeda leader and ordering the assassination of the Democrat leader should not be considered equal actions under the law. Trump is already arguing that his conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results was an official action of the president. There’s no way that should be considered valid.
What laws of our land were broken? Which statute? Has Obama been charged with anything and if so what? Because he didn’t have immunity from criminal prosecution, remember, so if this is your example you’re going to need to show that a former president a) had to break the law, b) couldn’t have accomplished the thing with existing powers, and c) faced criminal prosecution for that “official act” when they shouldn’t have, as a result of not having this immunity.
And this is my point exactly. Obama hasn’t been prosecuted for those drone strikes, nor for the operation that killed Bin Laden; and he won’t be, because those acts did not break United States law. When the President needs to do something most people can’t, they use powers imparted under existing law - the president already has quite a lot of power, you know. In the few cases the President has needed more than that, they’ve had to go justify it and get the other branches on board, at least nominally (looking at you, Bush Jr, and sending the Guard to the middle east to get around needing Congress to send the regular Army ಠ_ಠ). This is the way the system was designed, with checks and balances on each branch.
Long story short I’m sorry to say I find your example lacking and my challenge remains unmet. I very much appreciate you engaging in good faith though, so thanks!
I’ve seen dozens of people, including myself, wondering why there’s no one in the streets over this, it’s a long weekend for a lot of people too.
Honestly, DC is a 10 hour drive for me. If I didn’t think I’d be the lone idiot protesting I’d be on my way because I’m off until Monday.
But there’s safety in numbers. One person in the street will get arrested and end up as a footnote in the local papers, a million people might make them notice.I’ve had plenty of days where i wondered of it was worth my kids living without me to live without him.
Every fucking day
I think about this all the time: people commit suicide by gun every day. So they want to die and they have a gun. Even if 99% of them are too depressed to do anything but die, I really think there should have been several attempts on Trump by now. I mean, hit or miss, shoot yourself like you were going to anyway right?
I’m not advocating murder or suicide. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened.
I’m shocked there haven’t been attempts!
I think it epitomizes our cultural complacency nowadays. It’s the same reason why we don’t have mass protests right now. People are too comfortable to give a fuck. Assassins are the seven sigma outliers of the distribution but the whole distribution has shifted so far to the complacent side that we just don’t have any anymore.
The fact that rational people might decide that stochastic terrorism is the most logical choice on both sides should terrify the FBI and Secret Service. Imagine standing in the middle of that?
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What about if the president wants to be a naughty boy, but doesn’t want any of those pesky consequences?
I’d say Biden doing something official to null and void this decision would be good. He won’t, obviously, but it’s an example.
Pretty much every democrat is indeed highly concerned… Along with plenty of moderate Rs. It’s the far right fascists and their moronic blind followers that are rejoicing and the remaining people just don’t have the time or intelligence to care.
I feel like if Trump wins the election, my trans ass is going to end up in a concentration camp. Kinda hope I die before that happens.
I hope HE dies before that happens. And wish you well.
I’m gay so I have been literally looking at Canadian immigration
Sorry, mate. The right is digging in their claws here to…
We need to organize an underground railroad for LGBTQ+, minorities, and dissidents now.
I know you’re being glib but I hope you live friend
Actually I think it is far worse than you may…
They ruled that the president is immune from prosecution for official acts they would get to rule on what that means.
So if Biden does X; they could rule it not official; but if Trump were to do that same thing, I’ve no doubt they would rule the other waySays right in the ruling it’s up to the trails court to determine what is official.
The fact that Clarence Thomas has his name on this ruling really helps illustrate how easy and often cheap it is to simply buy rulings.
I wonder, what do you think the ruling changed? What can the president do now that the president wasn’t able to do before?
That’s only a delay tactic since it’ll eventually come back to SCROTUS
I have not read the ruling but if this is how it goes then it feels like a slow burn coup by the SCOTUS. The fate of every decision of the president is in the hands of these justices. They now control what is ‘official’ and what is not. They now control the president in some way.
or maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong.
Very similar to Nazis path to power, a lot of provocative action, violence, and people stop giving a shit that they are constantly doing this, an attempt at a violent coup, it dosen’t work, then the people in power create legal pretexts to allow a seemingly legal way to dictatorship.
The argument I saw for this was that a president shouldn’t have to second guess every action they take while in office. That if they are held liable for everything they do, they may be paralyzed to make changes to the government.
I kinda thought that was kinda what the founders wanted to happen…
Not really. The founders wanted a 3 pronged, balanced government with each branch checking the others’ power. Now the legislative essentially can’t do anything against the executive, and neither can the judicial unless SCOTUS changes its mind.
They specifically didn’t want another king
Correct but as the commander and chief there are military actions that need to be considered. An example i can think of is the droning of American citizens by the Obama administration. He’s not going to be charged with murder for that as it was an official act. At least that’s how i have thought about it.
The president should absolutely be concerned about doing something illegal and be afraid to act swiftly when that’s the case. If it’s the law then it needs to not be violated, that’s the point. If a law needs a provision for war time actions add one. Those exist this isn’t hard.
Yes I’m terrified! Honestly I’m thinking about moving to Vietnam. One it’s socialist and check with my username I’m into that lol. Also like America is the world hegemon if it starts going after everybody or World War 3 breaks out I can’t think of a safer place to be the Vietnam.
This may seem dramatic and hopefully it is but I don’t think it is. Democrats won’t use this power it or actually curtail it and as soon as another republican wins office this country will go full mask off fascist so fast. Honestly the mask might be off now. This frogs been boiled so long she’s not sure if she’s dead yet.
The global south is probably the safest place to be in the event of WWIII. Most of our, Russia’s, and China’s nukes are targeted at the global north. France will probably hit some of the global south, like Australia, and possibly South Africa, but the latter shouldn’t be a target anymore as they disarmed. France will absolutely nuke enemies and allies though, they told us back in the 70s that if anyone nukes anyone else, they are nuking everyone. Honestly Bali or Samoa would be the places to be.
