To celebrate our independence from kings, the Supreme Court has declared the president to be a king. At least, that is, when he’s a Republican.
Sotomayor dissents. She’s one of the 3 patriots left on the court.
We’re going to have to tear this court down someday soon. It is absurd that the supreme arbiter of the law in this land is run by people who are appointed for life, with no ethics regulation at all.
Biden is too timid to do what Lincoln did and extend the supreme court.
.
You have to wait for the next Democratic (in both senses of the word) president, and this time don’t play nice with the heritage Dems who want a clone of Bill Clinton.
Appoint two extra judges. Then, when the two oldest (R) judges die, two more. And no ‘compromise’ candidates this time.
One good thing about July 4th 2024: The nasty horror corruption nepotism party in Old Blighty will crash and burn.
Happy Canada Day!
I was touristing once and came upon the Red Coat Trail. It dawned on me, “Wait a minute. This is Canada. Red Coats are considered a good thing.”
Red Caesar is coming…
I don’t see how an action that is illegal or unconstitutional can be considered an “official duty.”
It is a bad decision on every level.
This court created a right out of thin air, that Presidents have legal immunity.
They also created a law out of thin air, that Presidents have legal immunity.
There is zero in the US constituion that gives the Executive head legal immunity. In fact, under the 14th amendment, they do not.
The 14th amendment is the equal justice for all amendment.
Everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. No one is supposed to be above the law.
There won’t be anymore Democratic presidents if Trump and Project 2025 goes according to plan.
There is one other huge flaw in their ruling.
That means every President from now on has…legal immunity under the law.
Someday that might be a Democratic president.
Someday that might be a real monster president that makes Trump look like a senile old narcissist.
We have a Democratic POTUS now, Dennis K.
He is -apparently according to SCOTUS immune from consequences for doing his job.
For fighting the enmeies of the United States of America and the threats to its survival.
Right. Arrest the Trump Traitor SCOTUS justices, Arrest Trump and his fellow domestic internal terorists. Rule the pevious treason SCOTUS null and void – reset things from there back to a semblence of how they were with a few improvements?
The Repugs & this SCOTUS eps won’t complain will they? I mean if its okay for Trump then ist okay for Bdien too right?
Do unto them as they would do unto us -but do it first?
Huh, make that Dennis K & raven..
Biden should immediately arrest Trump for treason, declare him ineligible to run for office and strip him of his U.S. citizenship, and deport him. Official acts. See how that works?
Hello from a Canadian in Canada. Wouldn’t a Democratic president need a 70% vote in both the Senate and the House to make changes to the Supreme Court, such as an additional 4 judges to cover each of the 13 districts, and term limits so they have to be reappointed to get back in? (Going back to a lifetime position in a district court is by no means a bad thing.) And are the odds of a Democratic president, in that position, actually going through with that less than or greater than my winning a major lotto jackpot? I’m fairly certain that I’d have a better luck with a lotto ticket than that.
The US Supreme court isn’t even pretending that they aren’t simple political hacks any more.
They have destroyed what poli sci professors call their legitimacy.
Governments, even dictatorships all depend to some extent on the consent of the governed.
We meaning the USA are free to ignore the US Supreme court and its rulings. The Supreme court doesn’t have any way of enforcing their rulings. They depend on the Executive branch and congress to do that.
It’s been done before many times.
.1. Andrew Jackson ignored it when he stole all the land from the civilized tribes and forced them to move to Oklahoma.
.2. The US South has been ignoring the laws and court cases about civil rights and racial discrimination since 1865, when they lost their war for slavery.
They’ve been doing this from 1865 until today,
.3. Prohibition.
That worked out so well we gave it up. The Kennedy family is said to have made their money running alcohol.
.4. Marijuana. That worked out so well that these days I can’t drive too far before passing a Cannabis store.
The Supreme court only cares about GOP power and not the USA or its people.
Why should the rest of us care about the Supreme court and its rulings in that case?
Ignore them when they are blatant political hacks such as outlawing abortion.
@ ^ HidariMak : Well, the POTUS is also the C-in-C so.. Now also immune from how he weilds that and emergency martial law..
Does the POTUS have the right to order the military to remove SCOTUS, Congresscritters, opposition leaders, etc .. Seems SCOTUS currnetly thinks so? Of course, we’ll need a test case of that pronto, Biden, go for it and let’s see how they feel when the power is used against them rather than by them…
@10. I swear this fuckn computer switches letters round on me.
Then arrest the GOP political hacks pretending to be Supreme court judges and send them along with Trump to whatever country will take them.
It is now totally legal for Biden to do that. He has immunity after all.
@ 10
The trouble is that he and the Democrats wouldn’t. Even in the face of fascist takeover they insist we “play nice” and be peaceful and complaint, even as the right cheats and murders their way into power. This is a weapon the SCOTUS is giving the right, knowing full well the what passes for a left in America will reject. They are counting on it.
For further example, watch this: https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A?si=6tH1vx9NjyLhLgFf
Apocryphal~ish* :
“The Supreme Court has made its decision; now let them enforce it,” – Andrew Jackson.*
*”The Trump Supreme Court has made its decision; now let Biden actually enforce it on them & see how they like it,”
This current Treason SCOTUS hijacked by the Repugs in violation of all decency and validity and longstanding political conventions has to go. It needs to be been gone yesterday or years ago. It should be considered illegitimate, fraudulent, an anti-Pope of a SCOTUS and a perversionof justice initself.
Attempting to rig the Justice system by imposing partisan justices who rule in your favour or by your wishes needs to be considered a major crime and the entire Federalist Society banned and imprisoned for Perversion of the course of Justice and Conspiracy to Pervert the court of Justice and Contemp of Congress for doing this.
Preventative measures need to be taken so nothing like thuis can ever be doen toSCOTUS ever again.
.* Also paraphrased by me & my memory & actually :
Source : https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/worcester-v-georgia-1832/#:~:text=(Although%20Jackson%20is%20widely%20quoted,yield%20to%20its%20mandate.%E2%80%9D)
@ Reginald Selkirk
1 July 2024 at 12:02 pm
Happy Canada Day!
God save the King.
To repeat what I’ve said elsewhere: Biden should order a military spec-ops team to take out Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and maybe Mrs. Alito and Mrs. Thomas as well. And WTF, why not Trump while they’re at it? It would certainly be well within his “core constitutional authority” as Commander in Chief.
Those corrupt and malicious Republican appointees need to be FORCIBLY shown what sort of abuse of executive power they just legalized.
The conservative Supreme Court Justices are making themselves King of America while allowing for a Republican President to assume that roll down the road.
Abort The Court!!
To be fair, if the only way to fight the fascist takeover is to have a fascist takeover, you might wonder what exactly the point is.
I mean, do you really trust Biden with that power? Or how about whoever the democratic party chooses next?
@23
The Court just gave that power to him. Whether or not you trust him with it has been rendered moot.
Actually, Biden could just start by removing Secret Service protection for the six king-making Supreme Court justices. That is clearly within the scope of his official acts.
https://elk.zone/jorts.horse/@AnarchoNinaWrites/112712409980337726
https://www.theonion.com/supreme-court-overturns-right-v-wrong-1819573211
@ 23
And here we go with the false equivalence.
Sorry, The Onion is the gift that keeps on giving…
https://www.theonion.com/clarence-thomas-torn-over-case-where-both-sides-offer-c-1851566812
birgerjohansson @1:
Biden needs a Democratic House and Senate.
HidariMak @13:
Expanding the size of the Supreme Court just takes a regular legislative act, which means we’d need a Democratic majority in the House and Senate (and a Democrat for Prez to sign the law). With the Senate filibuster, we’d need 60% there, but that could be removed by just a majority. (I.e., no Manchin nor Sinema.)
Adding term limits would require a Constitutional Amendment which requires 2/3 of each House of Congress, and then approval by 3/4 of the States.
WTF sort of decision is that!!
As I said elseweb:
I’m glad that SCOTUS has declared that the man who has promised to decree on Day One that people like me and so many of my loved ones are no longer people can not only do so, but can enforce that order however he and his White Christian Nationalist supporters (on the court and off) wish. Thank you for doing that now, SCOTUS. It’s nice to have a little time to set my affairs in order, before the WCN death squads start going door-to-door and, well, they’re not called “free sandwich squads,” now are they? Seems like a missed opportunity, that.
Thank you for the gift of time, SCOTUS. I do hope I can put it to good use. But, perhaps more than that, thank you for the gift of clarity. There’s something wonderfully focusing to see your doom coming, and know that you will not avoid it, no matter what. Whether they simply drag us from our homes and do it in the streets, or they go the trouble of setting up camping excursions first, it all ends the same way. All paths lead to the same bloody end. I can think of few better ways to remind people to make every day, and every choice, count.
It’s positively inspiring.
Vucodlak, not a whole lot has changed here.
If Trump and the GOP xian Nazis want to set up death squads and slaughter half the US population, the US Supreme court, no matter who is on it, couldn’t stop them.
The Supreme court doesn’t have any enforcement powers. Not even a single cop to their name.
And, if they want to slaughter a few million or tens of million of people, they wouldn’t need the permission of the Supreme court either.
They would just do it.
Along with this decision, the Supreme Fascists pretty much declared that the government has no regulatory power. They’ve essentially removed the statue of limitations on challenging regulations, so in order to bypass them, just create a new shell company that gives you standing to sue, so these SF can then rule in your favor.
They’ve also ruled that judges are more fit than regulatory agencies to interpret any questions of regulations Congress may pass (in a published ruling that mistakenly mentioned laughing gas (nitrous oxide) several times instead of the actual chemical in dispute). In less than a week, their rulings have all but completely dismantled the government, leaving the Gang of Six as the only authority.
If Biden weren’t a right-winger himself, secretly celebrating this ruling like he almost certainly did with the striking down of Roe v. Wade, as a last-ditch attempt to actually save the country he would use his Constitutional authority to protect the country from threats to have all the Republicans involved in January 6, either directly or via sympathy and donations — which includes Trump and Clarence Thomas and most of the Republicans in Congress, among others — killed outright. And then use the precedents which GWB and Obama set to refuse to even recognize any legal redress for that (GWB got the SCOTUS to accept that the fight against “terrorism” is worldwide, no exceptions, and Obama got the SCOTUS to say that nobody has any legal standing to sue the government if the President orders somebody killed for being a terrorist, so precedent says there would be no court case anyway). But of course he is a right-winger — that was the whole point of the party lining up to make sure he got the nomination instead of Bernie Sanders, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered — so he’s going to do nothing. He’ll claim that taking any extreme actions would violate norms and precedents, as though norms and precedents are more important than anything else, and the entire Democratic lineup will wag their fingers at us and say “how can we hold the Republicans to decorous traditional standards if we don’t follow them ourselves”. And then when Trump wins in November (which is coming, if the two presumptive nominees become the actual nominees at the conventions, as is basically guaranteed) Democrats will scream as Trump violates all those norms and standards and precedents, because that is absolutely going to happen.
Pity the Democrats absolutely refused to nominate anybody worth voting for more than the last decade. If they had, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, but had it happened anyway they’d actually take meaningful steps to put things right instead of sitting on their hands because the very rich want Trump and the party sold out to them ages ago.
It’s clearly a judicial coup, intended to end what there is of American democracy. It must be resisted by all means necessary. But does anyone believe Biden is the person to do it?
I guess this means that if Biiden declares a state of emergency (America is threatened by nazis again!) and sends the 6 conservative supreme court justices and trump to Guantanamo Bay , that is legal per their definition.
Hm.
I’m not weighing in other than to say I reckon F.O. @26 adduced the best point hitherto:
The immunity is for “official acts”, not for “any acts”.
BTW, as I understand it, the legality of any act is based on legislation (heh) by the legislative branch, and if challenged is determined by the judiciary branch; the executive branch is the only actual actor.
(Am I grasping the concept of the USA’s separation of powers correctly?)
John Morales@38,
Who decides what counts as an “official act”? The courts, and ultimately, the same Supreme Court that issued this fascistic ruling.
Ah, I see F.O.@26, who John referred to@38, made the same point.
KG
But once the executive branch has ordered the removal of the fascist judges, which the executive clearly wouldn’t publicise in advance, and the fascist judges have been removed, they won’t be in a position to rule on anything will they?
The issue is Trump kind of left himself enough plausible deniability. Yes fired people and hired people immediately after the results, and told them to find votes, told them to reorder the electors. But he didn’t tell them how. He told people to fight, but that’s just an expression. He was acting in good faith, you wouldn’t want a president scared to look into election issues, or afraid of relieving people of duty. Which are with in his official capacity. He’s allowed to deny federal troops, even though they knew something was about to transpire at the capitol. If the congress had issue with it, they have a recourse in impeachment and conviction. And you can say the republicans were complicit in not helping convict him, but that’s the issue, everyone just falls in for the party line. After the debates, a lot of democrat voters wanted Biden replaced, and then 2 days of spin later, Biden is the best and everyone is literally using the same phrasing.
If you read the opinion of the court, one thing I found very telling. The majority opinion written by Roberts and 2 concurring opinions used the same phrase. “An energetic executive is required for the security…”The dissenting opinion used the term “bold and unhesitating…”, citing the same source. To me, this is clear that both sides are playing political optics.
To me trump clearly acted in bad faith, and would say he did acts that could be considered high crimes and or misdemeanors, but he was already tried in the congress for those, but with said, I don’t think there was enough time to fully investigate what really happened until it was to late. I don’t think there is much to be done, except beat him in November.
[1] After many years of trying, the conservative judges have finally broken the 167-year record of the Dred Scott decision as the worst in the history of the Court.
[2] The SC has introduced the Führerprinzip to the US. When they said they were constitutional orginalists, they didn’t mention that the constitution in question was the Weimar Constitution after the 1933 Enabling Act.
Just in terms of history this decision is so bad that it rehabilitates Nixon, who if he had had the Roberts Supreme Court to back him up, would have been granted presumptive or absolute immunity for all of the ratfuckery that he was up to in sabotaging the 1972 election.
The US doesn’t have a king now – it has a tyrant. Your choice (maybe, if the elections aren’t overturned by vigilante courts) whether you get the benevolent tyrant or the authoritarian tyrant.
Some things to keep in mind. They didn’t clearly define “official” vs “un-official”. That was by design. It’s a delaying tactic, and it also leaves STOUS open in the future to invent any standard that they need to make it protected when the Republican does it and unprotected when the Democrat does it.
It also means that SCOTUS has handled themselves the power of kingmaker. They’re now like the Assembly of Experts (مجلس خبرگان, Majles-e Khobregan) of Iran – the body that chooses and dismisses the Supreme Leader. They’re the power behind the king now.
As the opinion is written, it establishes two levels of scrutiny – one for core executive powers, and a second standard for official acts. Official acts carry the presumption of having immunity. Core executive powers carry absolute immunity with no oversight from the court.
Tangent: One piece that is being overlooked in some places is that the majority opinion in a footnote said that any official acts cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial for criminal unofficial acts. That means all conversations with other white house official, twitter comments, etc., are automatically excluded from court for the purpose of establishing mens rea, aka criminal intent. It’s basically impossible now to charge the president for bribery or similar abuse of power.
So, what should happen IMAO is Biden declares that this is a coup in progress. He invokes the posse comitatus act that allows domestic use of military during a rebellion / coup. He should specifically go this route because invoking this power is undeniably a core executive power, acting as commander in chief of the military to prevent a coup, which means he has absolute immunity according to the majority opinion – not conditional immunity based on a later determination of whether it’s an official act or not. Then he orders the detention of Trump and 6 justices at GitMo as enemy combatants without habeas corpus (already established power – unfortunately). And then Biden pardons everyone involved in performing the arrest and detention. After it’s done, make a public announcement, saying that it would be great if the States passed an amendment to fix this problem. Once the States pass the amendment, resign and make a speech that this was never about gaining power personally and that’s why he immediately resigned.
The reason that it needs to be framed this way is to avoid the debate about whether it’s an official act or not. For example, he can’t just pack the courts because he lacks the constitutoinal and statutory authority to do so. By contrast, he totally has the right to declare a national emergency, that there is an ongoing coup, and that it is necessary to invoke the posse comitatus act and suspend habeus corpus to handle the situation. That’s undeniably a core executive power, and as written, the SCOTUS majority opinion says that the president would enjoy absolute immunity for it without any room for debate.
I’m mostly / very serious with my proposal.
Alternatively, do a similar plan, except it involves the arrest of Alito and Thomas under bribery charges.
PS:
The president already had immunity for official acts, the proper kind of narrowly tailored immunity against civil suits. The president doesn’t need any kind of immunity against criminal charges beyond the very narrow protections in the constitution which AFAIK basically mean “you can’t detain or arrest or put the president into jail on minor charges until after conviction”.
PPS:
Quoting someone on Reddit for truth:
PPPS:
This is exactly the same reasoning that led to the court inventing qualified immunity for police. At face value, they believe that we need a strong-man leader who takes decisive action, and that any fear of later reprisal for bad actions would unduly inhibit their ability to be a good leader. Of course this reasoning is completely absent and entirely antithetical to the values and written statements of the founders, but I have come to realize (or already knew) that we’re dealing with open Christian theocrat authoritarians, and they believe that the natural and just order of the world is to be a slave to a strong leader who has no oversight.
…
Senate filibuster is convention. It can be done away with at any time by a mere 50 + vice president vote.
Jazzlet@41,
Well, here’s a test for Biden. He made a speech criticising the SCOTUS ruling (but answered no questions). Is he capable of arguing the point, forcefully and convincingly, in circumstances where his arguments are questioned? And even more important, what is he going to do about it?
I find myself in pretty much complete agreement with GerrardOfTitanServer (there’s room for argument about the exact series of actions to be taken). Because there is a coup in progress.
Indeed. I hope people smarter and more informed than me can make Biden do those things. I don’t see a way out of this other than kicking at least 2 people off the court right now with replacements, or a larger number without replacements, or a fricking constitutional amendment.
Vote Biden. Always vote BIden. Vote for whoever has the best chance to defeat the Christian theocratic authoritarians, or else there might be not future elections.
I’m not entirely convinced that it’s a coincidence that this fascistic ruling was issued in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the theofascists being emboldened by seeing what a feeble leader potential forces of resistance have. It might be said that such rulings are long in preparation, but there’s no reason the theofascists could not have had alternative versions ready, deciding on which to use according to circumstances.
I just. I’m just so depressed and frustrated and angsty. How can anyone but a small minority of people believe that this is a good idea? It’s so profoundly un-American. We found the war of independence to get rid of the king, and now SCOTUS just said that the president is a king, a person above the law.
Then again, it shouldn’t be a surprise given the track record of SCOTUS re cops and qualified immunity. Still, they went so much farther than I thought they would.
I just. I don’t know.
@50– This is even worse than having a king. At the time of the American Revolution, the English king’s power had not been absolute for more than 500 years. The SC judges just overturned the key principle of the Magna Carta. Doubly ironic for these so-called constitutional orginalists given the Magna Carta was one of the guiding documents of the US Constitution.
@ducksmcclucken:
You are missing the point. The supreme court went way beyond that. At the very least, it makes the president completely immune to corruption and bribery charges. There is nothing stopping Trump from selling national security secrets for money that goes into his pocket, or accepting bribes for favors and so on because you cannot use motivation or any reasoning like that to prosecute him.
chrislawson
Now I’m even more depressed. Thanks
If Biden wins re-election, he will be a true overlord now. and man will the MAGAts howl! It will be music to my ears.
What if they don’t? Or just take more than four months to do so?
Postpone the election? Arrest state officials, until those left are willing to do as they’re told? Or risk going into an election with the winner, whoever they are, having complete military control over the entire country and a set precedent that they can just arrest whoever they personally say is guilty?
There are certainly Republican leaders who might see the possibilities of delaying the off-ramp, hoping to fill the power vacuum after Trump. An election between “Trump 2.0, but without the baggage” vs “Biden, but see, we told you he was coming for your guns” will be such an easy win for Republicans, they’d hardly need to try.
Plus there’ll be a slew of 2nd amendment nuts ready to test Biden’s resolve on military force on American soil. Arrests or postponement will both give them exactly the excuse they need to go out in the streets and dare Biden to give the order to kill American citizens. That’s going to end badly, no matter which way he goes.
This strategy will paint Biden into a corner where all Republicans have to do is sit on their hands for a few months, delaying the amendment, and now Biden has started a civil war. Maybe that’s inevitable and all that’s left is to try to win it, but let’s not kid ourselves about where this is going.
No. They started it. We’re just not taking it lying down. This country was founded on starting a war to get rid of a king. They just brought the king back. That’s a declaration of war to me. So, we can fight with every too in our toolbox, or we can preemptively surrender.
Again, I agree that perhaps other plans would have better chances of success. I don’t know. Something drastic should be done.
This SCOTUS and American Democracy are now clearly mutually incompatible. One them has to go. It need sto be trump’s treason SCOTUS.
If only it was as easy as Colbert suggests :
Stephen Declares SCOTUS Unconstitutional | Biden Is Fit For Duty | Don Jr. Courts The Amish Vote 12 minutes long.
.***
Via PBS Newshour :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-biden-addresses-supreme-court-ruling-on-presidential-immunity-and-trump
Plus :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-the-supreme-court-immunity-ruling-reshapes-presidential-power
PS. Remember the good ole days when a reasonable centrist SCOTUS were abused as “black robed tyrants” befroe the repugs and esp Trump broke the Supreme Court and actually made it that?
@45. GerrardOfTitanServer : For once we agree here. Yes, this is effectively a (Judicial) Coup and, yes, Biden needs to take drastic, quick action. This cannot be allowed to stand.
PS:
Not sure how they’d sell it because it’s not true. My plan does not involve taking away anyone’s guns, and I’d strongly suggest against doing that to avoid precisely this problem. The plan was just to hold 7 specific people in GitMo detention indefinitely without habeas corpus.
I’d also probably do everything to delay the election until the constitutional crisis is resolved.
Also, most of the gun nuts are a bunch of pretentious cowards. Let’s not ourselves pretend that they would actually do anything in sufficient numbers.
Biden can’t do shit. He won’t do shit. He won’t step aside and so the only bet is for him to somehow win the election.
Winning the election is not impossible but it needs good campaigning but I am not sure if Biden has it in him. This decision plus the abortion issue should be technically enough for Biden but he is also a zombie and half dead.
@ ^ lotharloo : A zombie AND also (only?) half dead? Huh. I’m not sure that’s how beinga a zombie / half alive actually works…
@StevoR:
I guess I need to polish up on my Christian mythology, because I thought zombie and half dead were the same, maybe not though.
GerrardOfTitanServer @ 45
“Senate filibuster is convention. It can be done away with at any time by a mere 50 + vice president vote.”
You are making the assumption that the Democrats are taking this seriously enough to break with convention.
In the nearly 8 years since Trump was elected I have seen plenty of cosmetic outrage but apart from Sanders and a few others I do not see a willingness to go beyond temporary bandaids to fix things.
First, remove the filibuster. The House has a razor-thin majority so the Democrats can keep the Republicans off balance with the threat of reversing everything if enough Republicans get too sick to attend.
Then, appoint four more judges to SCOTUS.
President Biden:
This is what pisses me off.
If you are not “young”, “can’t debate”, and ” can’t walk”, then why the fuck did you decide to run? Fucking scumbag. The USA and the world is held hostage but scumbag fossils who should be dying but they are grasping to power.
lotharloo, tsk.
Nice straw dummy you’ve set up there.
Had you instead written ‘If you are not “a young man”, “debate as well as I used to”, and ”don’t walk as easy as I used to”, then why the fuck did you decide to run?’, well that would be an actual opinion.
What you’ve done here is not that.
[pedantry]
Zombies are undead. That means they are alive. Were they unalive, then they’d be dead.
(Even a little bit alive is alive)
GerrardOfTitanServer #58
It isn’t true now and it’s flying off the shelves.
Sufficient numbers for what? Overthrowing the government? True. Forcing a PR nightmare? False.
And that’s all they’d need to do. With a president suspending an election that the guys on TV says he’s about to lose, the Republican talk shows screaming bloody murder, and people being arrested for demanding elections, it won’t just be the MAGAts you have to worry about.
Has anyone asked why court members who have spent decades studying the law should listen to a blog and their members who haven’t. It’s like a creationist trying to teach biology.
No, because that is a stupid question.
We don’t expect the power mad right wingnut judges of the US Supreme court to care about what any citizens much less us think about anything.
Here is what an informed constitutional law expert has to say.
It’s not all that hard to figure out what is going on and virtually all law experts say the same things we do. You do realize that this blog and the Supreme court aren’t the only two groups in the USA? It’s a big country of 333 million people.
She makes the case that the US has existed for 248 years without presidential immunity and we did OK. ” It’s a very, very pro-presidential power ruling and ultimately pro-Donald Trump ruling.”
The court only discovered we needed presidential immunity when Donald Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the election on December 6. It’s nothing to do with constitutional law and everything to do with partisan right wingnut politics.
False analogy.
It’s like educated, knowledgeable people discussing something that isn’t all that complicated. Something that directly effects our lives.
AFAICT, dumb duck is just a random troll tossing out a few insults.
On that, politely but firmly disagreed – there is plenty of talk among Democrats of banning all semiguns and even all guns altogether, and for example, see the dissent in DC vs Heller – but please let’s not go on that tangent.
It might still be the “least bad” option available to us. I also admit that I don’t know for sure. I am worried, and I am very worried that Biden will not do anything and just “wait it out”, and I strongly suspect that’s much worse than the variety of other options open to Biden.
And I don’t know what you mean. You seem to think that MAGA represents a small minority of the Republican party. Oh no. MAGA represents the large majority of the Republican party. I think the very large majority of people being upset in such a scenario would be MAGAs. Who else is going to be upset? Hell, even /r/conservative, the infamous bastion of “anything to own the libs” conservatism, seems to be about 50-50 conflicted on the ruling from my very limited browsing.
If a civil war is unavoidable, let’s at least get it out of the way now while we still have a stronger position compared to years later, after more damage caused by Trump and these Christian theocratic authoritarian fascists.
…
Fallacious appeal to authority. Worse, appeal to authority that has a clear conflict of interest, meaning that they are not disinterested experts, but rather very active participants in the current controversy. Also see what Raven wrote: AFAIK, practically every constitutional scholar (except Federalist Society asshats) think that this is absolutely atrocious and truly dangerous.
I’ve been noodling around the internet, looking at legal opinions on the current Supreme court attack on democracy.
I’ve yet to find any constitutional law experts who support their decision.
Lawrence Tribe from Harvard calls it “a devastating blow to our system of government.” and “dangerous”.
PS:
I simply disagree with the applicability of your “argument by analogy”. I disagree with the applicability of your analogy. This is not rocket science. It’s not that hard, especially if you read the arguments from both sides and the historical sources. It’s not like the Bible where you need to know ancient Greek and Hebrew – all of the relevant sources are written in English that any person on the street today can understand.
First, let’s get this out of the way: The overwhelming amount of evidence is that, circa 1800, criminal prosecution was a power of the people as individuals, and not an exclusive power of the executive branch. It was every person’s right to seek an indictment from the grant jury to become criminal prosecutor. Most criminal prosecutors were the victims in their own private capacity.
There is nothing in the constitution that says the president should have immunity. By contrast, some State constitutions of the period included explicit provisions for executive immunity, and the federal constitution expressly gives certain limited immunity to members of congress but not the president.
Ratification debate notes reveal that nearly no one thought that the new federal president would have executive immunity, and many remarked that the president would be less empowered than members of congress who were granted certain limited immunities, including immunity to arrest for petty offenses while going to the congress.
There is that one time that President Grant was arrested for speeding. A sitting president was arrested for a minor offense. No one claimed that the sitting president was immune to arrest or prosecution for speeding. By contrast, a member of congress going to the congress would be immune to arrest for speeding.
There is that time when Nixon did the thing, and Ford pardoned him, knowing that Nixon was criminally liable for the bad thing that he did while president.
Shall I go on?
On the other side, the MAGA justices are legislating from the bench, judicial activism, which they ironically claim to hate. They are bringing in their own values and factual conclusions to decide that the president must be free from threat of later prosecution in order to do their job effectively. However, this is completely without any basis in the text of the constitution, nor the Federalist Papers, nor Noah Webster’s works, nor any other work that I am aware of from the founding period, and it also flatly flies in the face of the legal history of the president where we have at least two clear cases that the president can be criminally tried for their conduct, including one where the sitting president was arrested for speeding and no one brought up any sort of complaint at the time saying that the president has any kind of special immunity.
PS: I was wrong in the comments above when I said that the president enjoys a limited immunity. Apparently only congress members enjoy that.
@67. ducksmcclucken : In addition to the deconstruction of your rubbish here :
See : https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/07/02/three-cartoons/comment-page-1/#comment-2226387
Have they tho’? Has Handmaiden Comey OfBarrett – the insult imposed to rub in the salt on RBG’s still warm corpse – really spent decades studying the law? Is she really thatqualified to be on SCOTUS? Did Rapey Brett Kavanaugh spend that much time studying law in between raping and boofing and enjoying the beers? Did Alito actually study ther law he ignores or spent more time thinking up weak excuses for flying traitors flags signalling his desire to oppose the Democratic peaceful transition of power?
Okay, some of the Justices there actually studied the law, Sonia Sotomayor did, Ketanji Brown Jackson did. Elena Kagan did. The three legitimately appointed actual legal expetrts did. They dissented from the frauds who lied their way onto the bench and should be in jail right now.
Also you assume no one on this blog knows the law? I’d say some know it a lot better than you do. Maybe most here even.
What’s your legal expertise & experiences here to talk, ducksmcclucken?
@ 61. lotharloo : Well, technically Voudou mythology not Christianist mythology – although most of the SF / Horror movie tropes & popular culture myths diverge a very long way from that Afro-Caribbean synthesis..
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou )
PPS:
Really fascinating. Apparently it was given that you could arrest, try, and jail a sitting president, with the assumption that congress would remove them and the vice president would take over, and presumably the vice president would also automatically take over on a temporary basis because incarceration would count as “incapacitated”.
Even today, people in power on the left buy into the “unitary executive” theory – at least partially: they believe that you can’t arrest, try, and jail a sitting president, but I see no evidence for such a proposition, and a lot of evidence against it. For example, people in power thought you couldn’t try Nixon in normal criminal court before he was impeached and removed as president, but I see no proper historical legal textual basis to make that claim.
The whole thing is just fucked.
This is a huge gift to the Biden campaign. The dumbass republican activist judges blew their load way too early, before they had the actual tool they need for absolute dictatorial power, Trump sitting in the White House. If Trump does not end up sitting there, the fascist house of cards comes crumbling down.
And excuse me for saying this, but I short of the democrats doing something massively stupid, like backstabbing Biden and replacing him with someone who will then have to campaign from the permanent defensive (because showing such severe party disunity will be a permanently festering wound and weak spot that would take an absolute genius and veritable renaissance (wo)man to overcome and I don’t see any potential candidate with such traits in the pool) and have access to zero funds, they have a much higher chance of winning than Trump.
What was it that gave Trump the edge in 2016? His popularity and talent or his MAGA platitudes? No, it was him ostensibly not being part of the political establishment, something “fresh”(LoL) compared to Clinton who comes from an established “dynasty”. Well, he blew that load. Everybody knows what you buy with Trump in the White House. He’s no longer the outsider “underdog” who’s taking the fight to the establishment as some earnestly believd, he’s part of the establishment now (and a convicted felon). One who just made it clear he’ll be dictator for life and turn the US into a failed fascist banana republic if he wins.
That’s not very appealing outside of a small minority on the right and the left.
@GerrardOfTitanServer
Not sure how you got that impression. The mainstream of the Republican party is firmly MAGA at this point. However:
Moderate Republicans. Swing voters. Independents. People who aren’t particularly into politics, but still have a vague idea that elections might be important.
In other words, the people who tend to decide elections. The people whose agreement you’ll need to make it work.
That’s a fair position, but I just want to be clear about what that means. Let’s be clear about how many body bags we need handy for the clean-up, how many graves will need to be dug, and by all the gods ever imagined, let’s be clear that we might not win that fight.
I’m really not trying to shit all over your suggestion. For what it’s worth, it was more realistic than much I’ve heard. Still, I think it suffers from the problem of not recognizing that a lot of people would rather have the status quo than the future you’re offering. The moment you suspend elections, all the supreme court talk becomes irrelevant, because the average person understands the former and not the latter. They understand what you took away from them, but not why.
But maybe I’m wrong. Go to your local diner and ask people what they think about it. Let us know what they have to say.
P.S.
I say “we”, but I mean “you”. I’m just one of those unfortunate people whose fate is going to be decided by a fight I have no say in. I guess that’s why I’m arguing here; because I don’t have anything more effective to do.
@LykeX:
Yeah, “Biden go murder/arrest Republicans” is dumb as fuck and it is not going to work and it’s not the solution people should be advocating for. Also, the immunity is against prosecution and it doesn’t allow the president to do things he is constitutionally incapable of. If Biden orders Trump and the justices arrested, he will get hit with law suits that would claim it is unconstitutional (rather than criminal) and then he will lose in court.
Now that I have had time to blow off steam, I agree that the supreme court judges hsve acted premsturely, just like they did with Roe vs. Wade.
They have dropped their masks too early, and so have the Republicans. Or what used to be Republicans and is now a far-right populist movement like that of Le Pen.
.
Trump cannot win an election with only his base, and those not in the cult will take note and not like what they see (despite the non-helpful attitude of corporate media).
Stopping a coup in progress is one of the explicit powers and duties of the commander in chief of the armed forces which is why I was careful to frame it that way. You could at least engage with my arguments instead of utterly ignoring them.
Would they? I don’t think this is entirely clear cut. I bet some lower federal justices would see it my way. Also, seeing as how SCOTUS is reduced to three seats in this scenario, and they’re the final arbiters so to speak (ignoring that in reality, loosely, the final arbiters is the person with the most soldiers) and it’s not entirely obvious that the three remaining SCOTUS justices would disagree that it was a coup.
Having said that, you could easily be right.
[meta]
AugustusVerger @74, without endorsing its content, I do want you to know I think yours is a most excellent comment, with succinct exposition and cogent clarity (typos aside).
@74, 76 You are pretty damned optimistic – too much so I would say. Indications are that Trump is going to win based on a complete lack of enthusiasm for Biden and a numbing of just how bad Trump was after 4 years without him. Last election Biden won only because turnout was higher than ever before. The MAGA cult will show up, and unless the anti-Trump vote turns out then Trump wins. Right now, every indication is that the anti-Trump vote is going to be a no show. Maybe there is a giant swing in the next few months, but if the election were held tomorrow you’d be looking forward to president Trump at swearing in time.
I like this take.
[mind you, I play Beau at 1.3x — PZ himself is a 1.25x, etc. — for my own comfort]
@John Morales @65,
No no, zombies are extra-dead. That’s why they’re weak against healing magic; it bumps them back up the alive-o-meter until they’re just regular dead.
Successfully applying antibiotic ointment and two hundred band-aids to an attacking zombie takes practice, but it does the trick.
@GerrardOfTitanServer
I already enganged with them. The reason Sotomayor mentions assassinating a political rival is that even though it would be deemed unconstitutional, it cannot be undone. Arresting doesn’t work.
[Prax, another time, perhaps. Nerdishness abides]
Necromancy, Ay!
Algemancy, O my!
My theory is that Trump panicked at the impending sentencing in New York and so pestered his cronies in the supreme court to save him, no matter whether it was the right time to do so or not. Another example of why you should keep a clear head and avoid allowing fear and terror to make your decisions for you.
#80 Canadiasteve
You don’t have to be enthusistic for Biden, just for the US not degenerating into a failed fascist banana republic. Seeing the Supreme Court’s right-wing activist judges so brazenly make a grab for absolute power and metaphorically putting jewelled crown on their heads with dumb, self-assured glee should be helluva motivation. In fact, wiping the smug smiles off their faces alone would already be reason enough to vote for Biden.
@AugustusVerger:
It’s pretty obvious what were the intentions of the supreme court: one, delay the decision as much as possible and two, make sure that decision enables Trump to delay the sentencing and/or the court cases for after the election. That’s it.
Unfortunately, “should be” is not the same as “is”. Meanwhile a third of Democratic voters say Biden should withdraw and the first elected Democrat has come out saying so, with others reportedly in the wings and Pelosi being on the fence, so party disunity is already apparent. Until the debate, I largely shared your optimism about Biden defeating Trump, but now you’re simply whistling past the graveyard. Reportedly Biden is meeting with Democratic governors today, and doing a TV interview at the weekend. If he performs well at these events, particularly the latter, that would certainly shift the balance of risk, but only a series of unscripted events at which he successfully thinks on his feet could possibly suffice to paper over the disastrous debate performance. I don’t believe he has it in him. Do you?
@77. birgerjohansson : “Trump cannot win an election with only his base, and those not in the cult will take note and not like what they see (despite the non-helpful attitude of corporate media).”
Problem is if only Trump’;s base trun out and NOT enough people vote for Biden.
If Biden voters don’t turn out or the vote is split between Biden and thea 3rd party spoiler..
Also remember the EC is rigged in te Repugs favour and then there’s gerrymandering, voter suppression, ad nauseam..
The Repugs have cheated and remain cheating considering the usual ppopular vote vs EC situation
Trump and his posse themselves are doing their darndest to make sure people turn out and vote against them. That already blindsided the thugs in 2022 when the predicted Red Wave failed to materialize since the corrupt SCOTUS had just declared women to be second-class citizens.
And as I said, Trump no longer has what gave him the edge in 2016, he’s removed any doubt just what person he and his cronies are and what they want.
If you want to direct your efforts towards something, direct them towards getting people to vote against Trump.
@KG:
The democratic party is infinitely incompetent. It’s not a surprise that the fascists are rising because their opposition is weak and stupid. There were multiple steps along the way the current disaster could have been avoided:
Off ramp 1: The establishment could have decided to not throw their full weight behind Biden in 2020 because he was already too old then.
Off ramp 2: They could have obtained a public pledge from Biden in 2020 that he would not run a second term.
Off ramp 3: They could have organized a more energetic primary than Williamson, Uygur, and so on. They could have organized debates to see if Biden is up to the task of confronting Trump in the general election.
And now we are fucked and everyone saw it coming, except for the idiots in the Democratic party. If they replace Biden, the new candidate will start from zero, no money, no time, and possibly no name recognition. Well done Democrats.
AugustusVerger @74
That’s my point, right now no one seems to be doing a good job of that. Trump can and will win on his base alone if turnout is low. And from here it’s looking like that’s exactly what is going to happen.
@90. AugustusVerger : Beware complacancy.
Do you remember 2016 and the pre-election feeling and expectations? HRC was (almost) a dead cert. Trump was a bad joke who would lose in a landslide. Most people were looking forward to the first female POTUS albiet HRC had been slandered for decades and was the new demonised Minutes Hate figure for the reich replacing Obama.
(There was a great Sam(antha) Bee clip I was going to include here but I cannot find it despite much searching frustartingly.)
Telling people that Trump is going tolose for sure -when itdefinitley ain’t for sure given that history – is unwise inmy view. We should work to make sure Trump and theRepubs anre stopped and beaten this time. Whoever the democratci nominee ends up being. We need tounite, w eneed to work together, we need to be prepared and do allwe can and again, we need toavoid being complacanct and get out everyone we can and not count any unhatched chickesn or unhatched POTUSés (POTii? Whatevs.)
@ ^ Fixing #93 :
Telling people that Trump is going to lose for sure – when it definitely ain’t for sure given that history – is unwise in my view. We should work to make sure Trump and the Repubs are stopped and beaten this time.
By Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee ends up being. We need to unite, we need to work together, we need to be prepared and do all we can and, again, we need to avoid being complacent and get out everyone we can and not count any unhatched chickens or unhatched POTUSés
Upon reflection, let me update my plan btw.
Joe Biden should order the arrest of Trump and the 6 MAGA SCOTUS judges and ordered them held at GitMo, without access to lawyers, without habeas corpus. After that is accomplished, he should make the following public announcement.
Trump tried to overturn the election and stop the peaceful transition of power on 6 January 2021. By the definition in the Constitution, he is a traitor and was part of an insurrection against the United States. With the recent Trump v United States decision by the Supreme Court, 6 Supreme Court justices have become complicit in this attempt to overthrow the government. Through their actions, they have also violated their oaths of office. Consequently, I have taken the drastic action of ordering their arrest and detention pending trial.
Furthermore, I have taken it upon myself to enforce the provision of the 14th amendment that bans traitors who have previously taken an oath of office from running for public office again. Under that authority, I am ordering that Trump shall be removed from all ballots for the November election, and the 6 Supreme Court justices shall be immediately removed from their position on the supreme court.
Given the severity of these crimes, and how the initial crimes happened during an armed rebellion against the constitution, and giving the ongoing threat of armed rebellion by their many collaborators in the federal congress, and in the State legislatures, and elsewhere, I have revoked their right to habeas corpus as allowed by the federal constitution.
It is my goal that the State legislatures will work to immediately pass a new federal constitutional amendment that affirms that no officer or agent of the executive branch, including the president, shall have any immunity for unlawful actions because everyone should be equal before the law in court, even if they are the president. Our nation was founded on this central premise, that everyone should be equal before the law in court. That’s what it means to be equal before the law.
Next, I will work with both parties in the Senate to immediately appoint 6 new supreme court justices to fill the new vacancies. I will strive for moderate, non-partisan picks. In particular, I will endeavor to find judges who wish to respect precedent and preserve the prior status quo, including Chevron Deference, but also the people’s inalienable right to weapons as guaranteed by the second amendment. However, make no mistake: I will not hesitate to make my selections without the cooperation of one political party in the Senate if they decide to not cooperate and instead side with the people who would tear down our republic constitution and replace it with a monarchy.
Finally, to show that this is not about my own personal power, nor the power of my party, I plan on resigning as president as soon as these two things are accomplished, and I will not run for reelection.
May god bless America.
PS:
The point of this new plan is that it’s not actually unlawful. All of these things are arguably legal and part of the intended uses of the presidency. In particular, the 14th amendment does not specify an enforcement mechanism for the clause about traitors who violate their oath of office, so the president might as well claim enforcement power, to kick Trump off the ballot, and to remove the 6 MAGA traitor justices from SCOTUS.