Is anyone else highly concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that the POTUS is immune from criminal liability?
Is anyone else highly concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that the POTUS is immune from criminal liability?
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?
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.
This is a 5 alarm fire. It's very concerning. This is precariously close to the end to the quarter millennium of the American Experiment. Seriously.
The likely scenarios, as far as I can guess are that...
a) if Biden wins with anything less than a substantial majority, there will be violence. b) if Biden just scrapes a win, violence seems likely. c) if Biden loses, the violence will be long lasting and possibly irreparable in the next generation or two.
They took a torch to your constitution. All for the sake of a very, very evil man.
I am quite afraid, to be honest. The people who are not concerned do not appear to have familiarity with some very significant and recent (ie - less than a century ago) world history.
This is not just a conventional political pendulum shift where every so often you find yourself in vociferous disagreement with where things are going. This is a fundamental shredding of societal fabric.
I would very, very much like to be wrong.
Disclaimer: someone calm me and op down.
I couldn't believe that every post wasn't about this ruling all day
No, you shouldn't calm down, this decision is absolutely cataclysmic for the US should a dangerous person be elected or the ruling not overturned.
I've been saying the states are okay despite all SCOTUS' stripping of civil rights and everything else wrong with that country because as long as there were checks and balances, voting had relevance.
With this ruling,I can't see that it will continue to.
A president can order their political opponents murdered.
They can order that all civil rights be suspended indefinitely.
They can order a suspension or abolition of term limits.
They can abolish voting altogether in a hundred different ways and nothing can be legally done to halt that president from continuing to abolish voting until it sticks.
If anyone does manage to legally stop the president, the president can kill them or cut off their fingers and remove their voice box.
Literally anything is now legal, fair game.
Biden has spoken out against that kind of power and he has it right now, so VOTE for BIDEN to buy yourselves some time.
Whoever comes after this term or the next likely won't have the same scruples.
This is far and away the most dangerous and harmful decision SCOTUS has ever made, which is saying a LOT.
It is the antithesis of the line in the Constitution explicitly stating that no elected official (like the president) has legal immunity.
The decision to grant an entire branch of the government absolute(it is absolute, anything can become "official") legal immunity could very rapidly destroy the country as it is and turn it into a true authoritarian state within a week.
It takes some time to write, print and sign the executive orders or I'd say a day.
I have to read up on it more because I haven't read or heard enough yet to convince me that this decision is not utterly catastrophic.
I'm shocked the dollar hasn't collapsed, any further international faith in US stability is misplaced.
Antiquated.
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 wayIt’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.
Beau of the Fifth Column on Youtube: https://youtu.be/vNzFQ10uSfU https://youtu.be/0Y-C1fWx37g
"This is now the most important election issue; it has to supersede all of the other ones. The American people now are no longer no longer choosing between two candidates that they really don't like as many of the previous election cycles have been. They're trying to make a determination which one is less likely to become a tyrant."
The only problem I have with this quote is that a large portion of the electorate want the tyrant.
It sincerely feel absolutely insane. Completely beyond any party line bullshit - I'm almost as concerned with what Obama would do with this as what Trump would do with this.
This sort of ruling has no place in a democratic society. It is beyond reprehensible, it is utterly absurd.
The fact that it has been basically accepted by the general public - no riots, no large-scale outcry - sends a dire fucking message.
"May you live in interesting times", indeed.
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.
We're completely fucked. The cult of 45 has a superpower few people understand: bottomless stupidity. It's more frightening than it sounds. They will destroy themselves for their orange god, and take the rest of us with them. They have nothing to lose, and their only desire is for their dictator to "make the libruls cry".
And as usual, the leaders of the Democrats are bringing educational pamphlets to a gun fight.
Yes.
This is a fuckin five alarm fire. It's time to leave the building. Don't grab your shit, don't put your shoes on first, fuckin worry about your safety first and foremost because this is an emergency.
I don't know what to do, to be honest. I feel like if you just went to DC near the physical location of the Supreme Court at any point in the next week you would see at least a decent number of people carrying signs and yelling. I thought about traveling there and finding them and talking to them about who they're with and how I can join. I don't know that that will solve the problem, but I think it would probably put you in touch with people who are at least doing fuckin something about it.
It will be good to have allies, learn what people are trying to do, maybe some of it will be productive, and then if the real bad shit starts roughly one year from now, at least you have some allies in place. But yes. It's a fuckin emergency. It's real, real bad.
It is absolutely highly concerning. That said, there's way too many people who haven't read the official ruling who are panicking instead of advocating for people to vote to keep Biden in office and prepare another viable candidate for that office once his second term is up. Because the only way to get these idiots off the SCOTUS is to elect non-conservative presidents who can win. And that only happens if people both vote and lobby for what they want. We need better electoral college regulations. We need ranked voting. We need the people to lobby to further limit the government because obviously this is what happens when we don't.
This ruling, coupled with the whole "Biden is too old, he should step down" BS is exactly the kind of propaganda concoction that will lead to Trump being re-elected in November if we don't do something.
Do I think this is a way for a President to sanction and enact the murder of political rivals? Under certain circumstances, yes. Do I think the average citizen should be worried about the President signing their death warrant? No.
You have to understand that we've had alphabet agencies for a long time and the President literally could use certain pretexts to kill a person if they wanted so long as they did it a specific way. That has not changed just because of this ruling and that's a big factor people should look at. There's a reason former Presidents haven't been prosecuted for drone strikes. Technically they could have been held accountable in a court of law before that. But we've known for a long time that in all actuality the law only works that way if you're poor or if you're going up against someone else who's independently wealthy. That's why Epstein is dead after all. Not because he trafficked young girls. But because his imprisonment put other rich people in danger. Sam Bankmanfried isn't in prison because he stole money. He's in prison because he stole from other rich people. Same with Elizabeth Holmes.
When Trump was in office, I need you to understand that the government (the people who guard national secrets) actually considerered him a threat and limited his ability to do damage by not telling him things. We would have been much worse off if they hadn't.
As a result, the apparatus of the government is not a monolith, just like the apparatus of the military or even just the US as a whole. It's made up of people. And we've limped along this far because we could rely on them not to do certain things. But what Trump was able to get away with by being elected and being in office? This is the fallout of that.
Your statement that the president can "personally" violate any law without criminal liability isn't correct. Here's a direct quote from the ruling "Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts."
"As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decision making is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct. Clinton, 520 U. S., at 694, and n. 19. The separation of powers does not bar a prosecution predicated on the President’s unofficial acts."
On its face this ruling admits there is a such thing as an unofficial act. The problem is that the SCOTUS should not be allowed to make this decision without checks or balances in place. I.e. if they are making the deduction that a President has immunity, they must cede the determination of such acts that have immunity vs those that don't to another regulatory body. That's the disturbing part to me.
This also makes me question what the point is of the impeachment process specifically because of this passage from the same ruling:
"When the President exercises such author ity, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions."
Technically an impeachment is not a criminal trial. But that passage doesn't specify the scope. So it could be used to argue that impeachment (while not a criminal proceeding) is an examination of the Presidents actions that potentially would not be allowed. And since the impeachment process is a check and balance for the presidential office, that's not okay.
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.
It makes me very uncomfy from a fundamental perspective. Ignoring the fact that it goes against the founding principles of the US.
It provides rather wide and sweeping immunity, and even presumed immunity.
Although to be clear, the immunity act does not cover any private acts of the president, so if they were to for example,personally murder someone, it shouldn't apply, even remotely.
Now to be clear, the likelihood that a government official uses this to kill people is incredibly small because otherwise the precedent that it would set would literally push us into civil war. Will trump do it ? Good question.
If you aren't GQP-brainwashed, you are concerned.
Inspired by the Warren court, I used to think the supreme court was a noble institution, today I believe it has been corrupted by Republican Christofascist shills who want power at all costs, even if it means betraying the constitution to install an unelected king. We're on our way to Gilead unless something is done.
This is intentional to make the US dictatorship ready. What do you think will happen if Trump gets elected?
Yes. Be concerned. Be very concerned.
imo, nothing feels more deep state than scotus serving a different america.
also, i just saw some lemmy post a twitter pic saying said scotus ruling is unconstitutional. since the judicial branch is the one responsible with interpreting the law, we can probably tell what they are going to interpret "unconstitutional" as at this point.
You're not wrong, and if anything it's actually worse than it at first seems. This is a radically new and expansive interpretation of the powers of the presidency that effectively say, there is no difference between use and abuse of executive power. Any use of the power is by definition legitimate and cannot be an abuse.
Consider bribery, one of the few crimes explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Say the President of China writes a personal check to the President of the United States in exchange for using any one of his constitutional powers, like a pardon, or sending in seal team 6, or appointing that person attorney general, or to a cabinet position.
First, The president's motive can never be considered or investigated. Now think about that. There is no criminal prosecution in history that hasn't included some investigation of motive. It is key to describing quid pro quo. But because the president is absolutely immune in all of their official acts, their motive for using the official act cannot be entered into evidence.
Secondly, the official act itself cannot be used as evidence in any investigation even of a non-official act. So you could never say in an indictment or in a court of law, " and then the president issued the pardon", or " and then the president sent in seal team 6", you could only say in the indictment that person x gave the president some money. That's it.
Then there's Justice Thomas's opinion which, not to get in the weeds, but says that appointing a special prosecutor for the case in Georgia is a gross abuse of power. And unconstitutional.
So it is essential for the functioning of the executive branch that the President's right to stage a military coup of the United States be protected, but appointing a special prosecutor is a tyrannical act and gross abuse of power.
Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for attempting to overthrow the government, but Joe Biden is a tyrant for assigning an independent investigator to investigate him.
It is impossible to look at this supreme Court 's decisions and not see that their interpretation of the Constitution differs greatly depending on which party is in power.
The podcasters at 5-4 called this a Dred v Scott-type decision. Dred v Scott was the decision that held in the 1800s that slaves were property and could not Free themselves, and which led directly to the civil war.
We'll have to live with this decision for several years whether we like it or not, until at least two and probably three supreme Court justices leave the court and are replaced by non-conservative kooks. It may be the law of the land for the rest of our lifetime. It certainly will be the law of the land for the next decade and there is really nothing that the president or Congress can do about it as far as we know.
Oh and if Trump is elected, All of the oldest supreme Court justices could resign in order to allow Trump to appoint much younger arch conservative justices who will live longer and ensure that a conservative dominated Court controls us for many more years.
For 248 years, presidents were required to uphold the rule of law, otherwise there was an understanding that we would indict your ass the second you left office. The supreme Court has determined that is unconstitutional, and in order to uphold the rule of law, the supreme executive with the most power of any person in the world, must have a free hand to violate practically any law and cannot be prosecuted for it ever.
The only remedy is impeachment and removal from office. 2/3 of the Senate need to agree to impeachment in order to remove a president from office, and the President has such sweeping powers and immunity that it will be, especially in this divided era, impossible to reach that threshold.
So nobody is exaggerating when they call this an invitation to Donald Trump to become an autocrat. Roberts, Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Barrett have destroyed The credibility of their court and set the table for The greatest threat to the existence of the United States as a democracy since the civil war.
As with the lowest posts in this thread, this will not be popular, but I'll say it anyway.
I'm not concerned. Not because I think everything is fine. It's because it's not been fine for a long long time. Now the curtain is being pulled back and everyone can see the reality that's always been there. Privilege just means private law, and the president is the most privileged person in the US. As time moves forward the window dressing is removed and we can see reality for what it really is. It reminds me of This Vicious Cabaret:
But the backdrop's peel and the sets give way and the cast gets eaten by the play / There's a murderer at the Matinee, there are dead men in the aisles / And the patrons and actors too are uncertain if the show is through / And with side-long looks await their cue but the frozen mask just smiles.
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
Mhm as a Canadian, the entire last week of SCOTUS rulings spells doom for your country if the people of the US allow Trump and any other federal Republican to attain power again. Lots of cause to be alarmed.
Roe v Wade from before this week was absolutely terrible. Snyder v Grants Pass was downright awful, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is going to have awful consequences for years to come. Trump v. USA to me is the cherry on top of this shit ruling sundae.
The best thing you can do is disseminate each of these rulings, and why they are bad to every person you know. The message for Roe is clear, as most non-crazies would rather have state governments not mess with the business in your genitals. Try and figure out a good way to explain each of the others as they are just as horrible.
To be fair, the president can and does already assassinate people extrajudicially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_the_United_States
I think the really interesting part is how it goes down when something from his past from before he was president sticks and they declare him immune ex post facto/retroactively covering his pre-presidential shenanigans (looking at NY charges) and also how his civil judgements play out
💀
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.
Not from US, deeply concerned anyway.
I’m very concerned. The US has been increasingly authoritarian for a long time. But I really hate how people are only seeing “oh shit that’s authoritarian now”
I mean, let’s be real, we live in a fucking authoritarian police state, and this isn’t something that suddenly happened with Trump or the SCOTUS, they are just showing some of the terminal symptoms. Our police force is above the law, mass surveillance is normal, corporate surveillance is a profitable business that doesn’t shirk from getting profit from the Govt, and our democratic system is feeling pretty autocratic.
The oppressive arms of the next authoritarian on the throne of the oval office have been set up over many decades, accelerating recently. But now that the throne has been polished, people are starting to notice.
This system is fucked.
edit: autocorrect fucked me
Dude, this is straight terrifying.
I’m going to add my “it’s very fucking concerning and we should be out in the streets protesting” comment. Tell me to be there this weekend, and I will.
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.
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.
Yes, duh.
we've discovered the corruption of the Supreme Court and they're getting as much done as they can before anybody tries to do anything about it. it's literally going to take amendments to the Constitution to fix this shit I think, and the people with the money to fund the politicians have no reason to push for it
Qualified immunity was bad enough, fuck yeah I'm worried. Politicians should have fewer protections, not more. This is supposed to be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" and this is not that.
Pretty sure we all are at least a little ticked off about it. Except for maybe all the fat oranges magats out there
I'm not worried about it from now until January. And in November I'll know if I need to worry in January, or in 2029.
But it IS worrying that at some point we'll have a republican president, trump or otherwise, and then all bets are off.
Only positive thing that could theoretically come out of this, for me as a European, is that some US representatives will finally stop going around saying that you are the greatest democracy on this planet. Problem is, the US nationals who usually utter such BS are not the ones able to realize how anti-democratic this is. As a US citizen with a working brain, I would be in DC now.
This is the worst you got to, up to now, going full circle from colony of a monarchy to monarchy.
It is time to distance ourselves until you get your shit together.
Any concern about it had by anyone not in an authoritative position is impotent.
Enjoy your King, fellow subjects.
More and more signs of converting the United States into a Greek democracy. Ruling Despots, some 'free man' and voters and 96% rest incl. women, peasants, worksmen, merchants and slaves, not to forget bout slaves.
No dude, it's only the most talked about things right now.
I'm pissed that Biden isn't calling their bluff and breaking a ton of laws right now.
I've long held that the independent executive is an inherently authoritarian device of state and government.
This is the final confirmation. Wherever the leader of the country can be safe from the direct intervention and punishment of the representatives of the people and regional leaders, they will inherently come to view the restraints and accountability of their position as burdensome limitations.
The united states presidency was built to incentivize chasing dictatorship. We need to dismantle it in favor of parliamentary style leadership.
He is only immune from acts that fall within his job description. If you want to criminally charge the president for one of his actions, you will have to convince a judge that the act was outside his job description.
SCOTUS didn't grant his immunity requests. They sent the case back to the trial court and told them "make sure you specify that this action was outside the scope of his official duties before you make your ruling".
That's it. SCOTUS didn't do him any favors.
This could easily lead to not firing the public servants that are not loyal enough, but outright assassinating them at best, or just Trump keeping the presidency (dictatorship) until the end of his life instead of holding elections at worst.
Nope. Nobody is concerned. Did you know that a new episode of One Piece is coming out this week?
ಠ_ಠ
Hey so there's some echo-chambery stuff going on in Lemmy right now, so I want to provide some clarification:
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The court decision did not create a new law. It provided clarity on laws already in place. Presidential immunity is not a new thing. It's a well established power. See: Clinton v. Jones (1997), United States v. Nixon (1974), United States v. Burr (1807), Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)
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The court decision does not expand on the law either, it clarifies that:
The President has some immunity for official acts to allow them to perform their duties without undue interference. However, this immunity does not cover:
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Unofficial acts or personal behavior.
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Criminal acts, (to include assassination).
The decision reaffirms that the President can be held accountable for actions outside the scope of their official duties. It does not grant blanket immunity for all actions or allow the President to act as a dictator.
People who are giving opinions based on what they read on Lemmy instead of going and reading the supreme court opinion that is totally online and right here for you to reference are spreading misinformation and fear.
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People are freaking out that the president can legally kill people now but that was essentially already the case, de facto. Obama did it via drone strikes, for example, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was involved with the Taliban but never given due process, and later his 16 year old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was never even accused of terrorism - both American citizens. Of course, Bush also set up a completely illegal system of detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay, which also included American citizens and which continued long after his term. There was also of course the illegal mass surveillance program that began under Bush and continued through Obama, Trump, and Biden, with the only legal action being against the person who exposed the crime.
In all of those cases, the Justice department simply chose not to investigate or press charges, as is within their power to do. If the president straight up shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, it would be up to the Justice department to decide whether or not to prosecute, and if they say no, that's that (though it would also be possible for congress to act via the impeachment process, which would require a majority of the house and 2/3 of the senate to be on board).
This ruling doesn't give the president a blank check, but rather, it gives the court an easy legal argument to give the president a pass on any case they hear. The court can still rule that something wasn't an official act. Practically speaking, before they still could have still found the president innocent for whatever bullshit reason they could come up with, but they're now saying that they don't even have to pretend to have a reason.
Of course, if the president wanted to start killing Supreme Court justices or other political opponents, a piece of paper was never going to be the thing that stopped that. Whether the president can order the military to gun down congress is just a question of whether the military decides to listen to them and whether anyone manages to stop them. It was always the case that if you can kill anyone who could find you guilty, you can do whatever you want. On the other side of that, even if the ruling did authorize the president to kill all of his political opponents on some technicality, he would still face the same obstacles if he tried to do it.
What the law says only matters insofar as it can be enforced, and ultimately laws represent threats made by the powerful towards the rest of us, and among the powerful the way of settling disputes is power, with legal power being but one of many forms that can take.
I am not important enough to be targeted but privileged enough to be noticed if I was disappeared.
I'm not American and so am not in touch with American politics, but I have an American friend who doesn't seem to be bothered by it. I assume he knows better than me, so I'm trying not to worry about it.
But if I were to worry about it, I can see the whole Trump situation leading to another civil war for you guys...
You're not misunderstanding, but calm down, anyway.
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
That is why we have impeachment.
People keep going on about assassination. Nothing allows the president to order a political rival killed. The military would refuse the order and if they did actually do it, they would face a Court martial for murder.
As shocking as it sounds, this was just a clarification on how the US has run since the founding of our country.
A president can't claim immunity. The president has always had immunity for acts that the constitution provides the office.
The president has inferred immunity for powers shared with Congress.
The president enjoys no immunity for acts as a private citizen.
These are important distinctions.
You or I cannot bomb another country. The president can.
You or I cannot kill a maid. The president cannot.
Only acts used with the power of the office are immune. You can't use presidential authority to sexually harass your staff. That's against the law.
The ruling didn't change anything, nor was anything given. SCOTUS doesn't create the law. We don't have a magical genie godking president all of a sudden.
I am concerned if a replikkklown ever gets elected to presidency before we can have the tRump appointed judges either executed or removed from office and fix this dumbass shit.
No. Because they specifically said this is not the case.
The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.
They're essentially protecting a president from flagrant lawsuits that could be brought for unfounded accusations. The constitution outlines a handful of constitutional duties (such as pardoning) which are by definition the law not prosecutable. There's a presumption of immunity for their official acts. Anything they do outside of official acts is not immune.
Nothing has really changed. It's only made it more clear how difficult the process is to indict a president. The Fourth section of Article II still exists.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
So, let's say, not for the first time ever, a president orders an assassination and congress wants to hold them accountable for this action. It will need to be determined if this act was part of their official duties. The issue SCOTUS has presented is that it's very, very difficult for congress to obtain the motivation for such an act. Such a case would be dependent on the specific circumstances. I mean, if the president orders the assassination of a foreign leader, no one's going to, nor have the ever, question that. If they order the assassination of a congressional leader, don't imagine they're going to get away with that.
I ain’t readin’ all that, Free Palestine
Lol imagine being so late to the discussion that it's already over, and your thoughts are little more than hindsight, that your newborn child is an unforseen consequence
Edit; incumbent idiots don't make the rest of us responsible for their mistakes. They fucking on they own, fucking simpasses.
I for one have not read the original text of the actual ruling. To be clear, nor would I understand the legalese wording if I had.
I think we are just waiting to be told how to feel about it, by people who actually know stuff. And they are probably afraid of getting killed (literally) at this point.
Like Biden has known about the Supreme Court's bent for awhile now, and the Heritage Foundation too, but what does he do about it all? I mean... did you see the last debate? Regardless of that, how does his excuse hold water that he was jet lagged from traveling, when that was literally weeks ago in the past? This is our white knight savior who we all look to in order to save us all, with no effort required on our parts, except maybe to go vote, not even as often as once a year?
Similar to climate change, whatever is going to happen, I suspect it already has, possibly up to or more than a decade ago. And that's about all I can guess at. Note that I'm not trying to be fatalistic, but if this attempt at realism appears similar to that, perhaps there's a reason.
The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences.
This isn't true.
They ruled that the President has criminal immunity for official acts in line with the constitutional rights and duties of the POTUS.
They also ruled that non-official acts, or acts taken in a personal capacity as a private citizen, are not immune to criminal prosecution, and that there's a large gray area in between the two where it needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
The rules remained the same as it has for 200 years. The president is PRESUMED immunity for OFFICIAL acts. UNOFFICIAL acts have no immunity. This means there are still two angles of attack. Firstly you can say it that even though it was official, it was still unlawful. And second, you can say it wasnt an official act at all.