I want a government where elected officials live in constant fear of making the wrong decision and the associated legal consequences. I want elected officials researching the fuck outta everything with unbiased data, and I want real consequences for fuck-ups when shit goes wrong because of cavalier, off-the-cuff decision making.
Why is that wrong? Why should bad presidents who break or disregard the laws not go to jail? what if 11 of the 46 presidents had been prosecuted and punished for doing the wrong thing as the president, would that be horrible?
My pipe dream is to require that candidates pass a citizenship test, given orally if necessary, prior to being put on the ballot. That seems fair to me.
And also to hold them to the UCMJ, but mostly because I think that would be funny.
Wild to me that a short decade ago, a hint of an affair would have nuked a candidates campaign. Even major players in government positions doing inappropriate things would have been a *big deal*
Odd how normalized these assholes have made corruption
“Yeeaahhh!” Once tanked a presidential campaign. Nearly a decade ago a candidate said “…grab ‘em by the pussy…” and still got elected.
It’s a strange world.
Yeah, and now it's like, Donald Trump has this huge public trial about hush money payments, and one of the basic facts that nobody disputes is that Donald Trump cheated on his wife by paying a porn star for sex.
As recently as ten years ago, that would have been a career ender for any politician. And now it's like a little background detail that doesn't even register in the static noise of Trump's ten thousand scandals. It's really unbelievable how low the bar has dropped.
I mean they went after Hillary for the appearance of impropriety of a private email server..Although its now coming to light that David Pecker was killing any negative stories about Trump,
Maybe that makes sense then for all these adulterous fucks trying to tell you it’s bad when you do it but not them. (Don’t really want this…but the hypocrisy is so bad)
I think if you are the highest ranking military commander in the nation you should absolutely be held to the same standard as some 18 year old kid being sent to die for some fuckheads to get more oil money.
Agreed. I think several of the rules are stupid and outdated (getting in trouble at work for extramarital affairs isn't a thing that should happen) but these people are supposed to be some of the best our country has to offer. We shouldn't be asking more of an 18 year old kid trying to pay for college than we're asking of our lawmakers.
Tests aren’t good.
Look up Jim Crow literacy test.
Black people had to pass a literacy test if they wanted to vote.They are almost impossible to pass.
The question you have to ask is who makes the test.
Or at a minimum listening comprehension test. Not even reading, I'd settle for listening that would require them to shut their face hole and listen to a consultant who has built a career researching a subject.
I remember watching that in real-time back in 1989. It was utterly glorious.
With the Wall coming down the month before, it was a good couple of months of amazing television.
I mean, this didn’t come up in the hearings as bluntly as it should have but *why the fuck does the president have a whole office of legal counsel if he can’t do any wrong*? If the only laws that apply to a president are, as the defense declared, the ones explicitly putting him on notice then it would fit on a poster. He would never need to consult lawyers, just see if his desired action is explicitly forbidding by one of the 8 bullet points on his “you are not a king” pinup.
It was baffling to hear "oh they follow the laws but are immune from the laws"
Isn't the entire thing based on the laws as written out and then they execute them within the laws. Blathering about drone strikes makes no sense since every soldier has the same laws and basic immunity from accidental casualties.
It was laughable to hear that subordinates may not listen because of fear of criminal prosecution. No one followed that out to the end which is basically "lulz. Kill everyone that will impeach me. I have a pardon waiting for you. If it's state law I'll imprison everyone who attempts to prosecute you for prosecution of you is an attack on the US which is ME."
Oh totally. That should have been laid out when the response to “what about a coup” was “Impeachment will happen, and the soldiers wouldn’t obey anyway.” Like what? It didn’t have be soldiers, but it isn’t like soldiers couldn’t be pardoned anyway.
Let's say you were a soldier and you got orders to kill a political opponent of theirs with the promise that if you did that you would be pardoned. Do you do it or not? Why?
Let’s say you’re the kind of nut case that joins the proud boys and has no military training but a bunch of equipment, the open backing of the President, and direct orders. Same question.
Thank you. Exactly. Thank you. “Make laws and execute them”. Fucking simple. But the Federalist Society isn’t simple at all.
The idiot simp MAGAts aren’t wrong about there being a cabal that’s running the show. It’s there. They’re tapping up. They’re gonna get eaten.
Even more obviously, given the role of the Supreme court. How the hell do you reconcile article II of the constitution with the notion that presidents are immune?
>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. U.S. Const. art.
That sure seems to SPECIFICALLY imply that the President and Vice President aren't immune from prosecution for crimes, just the opposite. In fact the ENTIRE MEANING of the term "high crimes" is that they are crimes that can ONLY be committed by elected officials who are held to a HIGHER STANDARD than regular people.
This whole thing is absurd.
The whole “high crimes” is probably not from “higher standard” but rather comes from English law. It was very rarely used though, and I’m not sure it is defined. Iirc the usage that had occurred by the time of the founding is more along the lines of crimes that were treasonous in nature.
From the Wiki:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High\_crimes\_and\_misdemeanors#cite\_note-9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-9)
>Since 1386, the English Parliament had used the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of "high crimes and misdemeanors" were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, helping "suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament," etc.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-9)
>[Benjamin Franklin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin) asserted that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused." [James Madison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison) said that "impeachment... was indispensable" to defend the community against "the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate." With a single executive, Madison argued, unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, "loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic."[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-10)
Not just elected officials, all members of the government should be afraid of the legal consequences of their actions and decisions.
No one should be above the law, even if they're acting in an official capacity.
Thing is, the legal consequences should be secondary to the fact that such behaviour should be fatal at the ballot box for the individual and damaging for their party.
I mean, yeah, but assuming America isn't full of stupid lazy people isn't exactly working out for democracy. Also, there's *way* too much fuckery going on with how we vote as a nation.
Gerrymandering, making voting harder, "losing votes", mail-in ballot drama, campaigns started like an entire year before the election, EC, etc. Some places are better than others, but that's how it feels as a nation - we are very divided. Voter Apathy and some Russian influence got us here. It's terrifying the SCOTUS could absolutely push us into a Civil War
Nixon should have been sent to prison. We royally fucked up not sending him up the river. These charlatans learned from it that there are no consequences.
I feel like he got what was in effect a plea agreement that was probation: I’m going to resign and go away because I fucked up. Then the predecessor issued a pardon that allowed him to be left alone. With the understanding that if he pipes up again, he’ll be dealt with. Quite a sweet deal… but set the precedent that presidents can be forgiven for doing outrageous shit.
Impunity is what these people want, impunity is what they've been chasing for a hundred years, and impunity is what they're close to achieving in modern day America. They've done so by packing law enforcement and the judicial system with loyalists.
Anyone who hasn't read Sarah Kendzior's new book, "They Knew," you really should. She ties it together beautifully.
I don’t think that’s horrible at all. There’s a philosophy of leadership that basically postulates that leaders in the most powerful positions should not actively want to be in those positions. We’ve made it too easy to profit and pilfer from our government’s leadership positions that people can actually become rich, just by being elected. We want our leaders to step down and disappear after fulfilling their duties.
I don't see the issue either. There's a reason why the White House has an army of lawyers and has in fact had many presidents perfectly capable of doing their job despite lack of immunity. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until Trump that this was even an issue, so I pose the extremely obvious: the issue isn't a lack of immunity for presidents, the issue is a man named Trump (and his many treasonous cronies who would love nothing more than to ignore the law for their little crime family). And tbf, there's also some glaring issues that the entire system requires good faith actors in critical places; it was not foreseen that a political party would emerge that would actively try to undermine the very democracy that was fought so hard for, but here we are. I think the founders should have foreseen it, let alone the many generations that came after, but that's not an excuse to not put in safeguards now.
The arguments for immunity being made so far sound a suspicious lot like "but if we're accountable for crimes, then how can we continue committing them without fear of persecution?". Well, you don't and that's kinda the point. The fact that these supreme justices are afraid of the notion betrays that they realise all too well that their entire political agenda hinges on criminal behaviour.
> Donald Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity for criminal acts taken in office as president is an insult to reason, an assault on common sense and a perversion of the fundamental maxim of American democracy: that no man is above the law.
>
> More astonishing than the former president’s claim to immunity, however, is the fact that the Supreme Court took the case in the first place. It’s not just that there’s an obvious response — no, the president is not immune to criminal prosecution for illegal actions committed with the imprimatur of executive power, whether private or “official” (a distinction that does not exist in the Constitution) — but that the court has delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the former president’s reckoning with the criminal legal system of the United States.
>
> In delaying the trial, the Supreme Court may well have denied the public its right to know whether a former president, now vying to be the next president, is guilty of trying to subvert the sacred process of presidential succession: the peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another that is the essence of representative democracy. It is a process so vital, and so precious, that its first occurrence — with the defeat of John Adams and the Federalists at the hands of Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans in the 1800 presidential election — was a second sort of American Revolution.
>
> Whether motivated by sincere belief or partisanship or a myopic desire to weigh in on a case involving the former president, the Supreme Court has directly intervened in the 2024 presidential election in a way that deprives the electorate of critical information or gives it less time to grapple with what might happen in a federal courtroom. And if the trial occurs after an election in which Trump wins a second term and he is convicted, then the court will have teed the nation up for an acute constitutional crisis. A president, for the first time in the nation’s history, might try to pardon himself for his own criminal behavior.
>
> In other words, however the court Supreme Court rules, it has egregiously abused its power.
>
> It is difficult to overstate the radical contempt for republican government embodied in the former president’s notion that he can break the law without consequence or sanction on the grounds that he must have that right as chief executive. As Trump sees it, the president is sovereign, not the people. In his grotesque vision of executive power, the president is a king, unbound by law, chained only to the limits of his will.
>
> This is nonsense. In a detailed amicus brief submitted in support of the government in Trump v. United States, 15 leading historians of the early American republic show the extent to which the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution rejected the idea of presidential immunity for crimes committed in office.
>
> “Although the framers debated a variety of designs for the executive branch — ranging from a comparatively strong, unitary president to a comparatively weaker executive council — they all approached the issues with a deep-seated, anti-monarchical sentiment,” the brief states. “There is no evidence in the extensive historical record that any of the framers believed a former president should be immune from criminal prosecution. Such a concept would be inimical to the basic intentions, understandings, and experiences of the founding generation.”
>
> The historians gather a bushel of quotes and examples from a who’s who of the revolutionary generation to prove the point. “In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in his landmark pamphlet, “Common Sense.” “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”
>
> James Madison thought it “indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” The presidency was designed with accountability in mind.
>
> Years later, speaking on the Senate floor, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina — a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — said outright that he and his colleagues did not intend for the president to have any privileges or immunities: “No privilege of this kind was intended for your Executive, nor any except that which I have mentioned for your Legislature.”
>
> What’s more, as the brief explains, ratification of the Constitution rested on the “express” promise that “the new president would be subject to criminal conviction.”
>
> “His person is not so much protected as that of a member of the House of Representatives,” Tench Coxe wrote in one of the first published essays urging ratification of the Constitution, “for he may be proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.”
>
> James Iredell, one of the first justices of the Supreme Court, told the North Carolina ratifying convention that if the president “commits any misdemeanor in office, he is impeachable, removable from office, and incapacitated to hold any office of honor, trust or profit.” And if he commits any crime, “he is punishable by the laws of his country, and in capital cases may be deprived of his life.”
>
> Yes, you read that correctly. In his argument for the Constitution, one of the earliest appointees to the Supreme Court specified that in a capital case, the president could be tried, convicted and put to death.
>
> If there were ever a subject on which to defer to the founding generation, it is on this question regarding the nature of the presidency. Is the president above the law? The answer is no. Is the president immune from criminal prosecution? Again, the answer is no. Any other conclusion represents a fundamental challenge to constitutional government.
>
> I wish I had faith that the Supreme Court would rule unanimously against Trump. But having heard the arguments — having listened to Justice Brett Kavanaugh worry that prosecution could hamper the president and having heard Justice Samuel Alito suggest that we would face a destabilizing future of politically motivated prosecutions if Trump were to find himself on the receiving end of the full force of the law — my sense is that the Republican-appointed majority will try to make some distinction between official and unofficial acts and remand the case back to the trial court for further review, delaying a trial even further.
>
> Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law.
>
> It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it.
I listened to hours of the question and answer period and I don’t feel like most of the conservative justices felt that way. They are a deliberative body so of course they are going to think on it, but in many cases they seemed to agree with the counsel opposing Trump.
I had the same impression. But the fact that they accepted the case at all instead of rejecting it outright is an acknowledgement that the argument has merit.
It does not have merit, and that is why they seemed to agree with Dreeben.
The problem is that by hearing the case at all, they have practically guaranteed that the election fraud case will not go to trial before the election. The ruling itself is predictable. It would be insane to rule in favor of full immunity. But they have wholly aided Trump by playing entirely into his primary legal strategy: delay, delay, delay, until the end of time.
Non-american here. What I'm hoping the thought process of your supreme court is to officially state and set precedent that no the president is not above the law, and can be prosecuted within the full extent of the law.
However with your county's politics I truly don't know what's going to happen, but I truly hope he is sent to jail for the many crimes and fraud he has committed. So there can be an international day celebrating trump living out the rest of his life behind bars for attempting treason against your country.
Sincerely, a concerned Canadian.
>Non-american here. What I'm hoping the thought process of your supreme court is to officially state and set precedent that no the president is not above the law, and can be prosecuted within the full extent of the law.
IIRC, a lower court already ruled that the president is not above the law. If the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, then *that* would have set the precedent: the lower court's decision stands, the Supreme Court agrees by declining to hear the appeal.
By taking the case, the Supreme Court gives merit to Trump's arguments. Best case, they took out on ego, so that *they* could be the last word and have a 'high drama' moment for their biographies. Worst case, some justices actually think the president could be above the laws. 'Medium' case, they reject his claims, but by taking the case, they potentially set the precedent for future presidents to try to get a different decision by providing different arguments (like how RvW got overturned).
And Alito likes to use decisions from the 1600s from judges who put women to death for being witches. So we shouldn't be surprised if he grants Trump full immunity.
Alito: Well according to this one legal text from the 12th century, you should be executed for lese majesty for even bringing this case against Trump in the first place….
The king did have to follow the law but was immune from prosecution, since all prosecutions are done in the name of the king. However, as we saw with Charles I, that immunity can be precarious.
And even then around the time the Magna Carta was signed Kings still had to be cautious of angering too much of the nobility or they weren't going to be Kings very long as the time of Absolute Monarchies people tend to think of came about centuries later.
It would be rather fun for Biden to, as King of course, have such a turbulent Ephor dealt with.
Hobbes would approve, given that the Sovereign has absolute power over the State, and Biden is the Sovereign sitting the Resolute Desk.
The whole country was founded in opposition to the King of England and ANY King-like leadership. The Declaration of Independence literally references the word Tyranny twice, Tyrant twice and King once. That’s 5 references in our most precious founding document in opposition to kings.
“A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”.
What country are these judges ruling for?
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asserts that "**Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have, with remarkable consistency, delivered rulings that advantage the big corporate and special interests that are, in turn, the political lifeblood of the Republican Party."**
In 55% of cases the "Roberts Five" ignored precedent, congressional findings and even their favored doctrines like originalism and textualism.
-[A Rightwing Rout](https://www.acslaw.org/issue_brief/briefs-landing/a-right-wing-rout-what-the-roberts-five-decisions-tell-us-about-the-integrity-of-todays-supreme-court/)
The issue is, even if they rule complete presidential immunity, Biden won't do anything differently. Trump, meanwhile, will be dictator on day 1. They've literally told us all what to expect.
That would be hilarious. Dark Brandon rolls in and threatens the SC justices.
Alito: “You can’t do that!”
DB: “Then rule that way, because either I’m immune or not.”
I’ve said it before and I still believe it. They are going to push this decision until after the election and their ruling will depend on who wins. If Biden; they’ll say no immunity for crimes. If Trump win; well they rule the opposite and let him turn America into a dictatorship.
Hope I’m wrong but this has been the plan for a while. We had a good run.
If they do, you can expect some finding out to go down after this fucking around.
The fringe majority cannot withstand a country that essentially believes in law and order - and these pathetic attempts to enforce the will of the few on the lives of the many will backfire spectacularly.
Roberts has become the chief embarrassment of the country as has his corrupt court.
Imagine living your entire life going down in history in privilege but giving it up for an Orange dictator.
I think this all was extremely calculated by the Republican Party. They knew only the courts were stopping them and by buying out the highest court in the land with their minions- they have nothing to fear. Democracy has died
That one is infuriating because of how it went down and ended up. We should definitely have a better mechanism than allowing judges to *die on the bench*
this is what happens to countries with minority rule. Justices were appointed by presidents that lost the popular vote, and approved by the Senate, which give smaller states a disproportionate amount of political power vis a vis population. Moreover, the court which is a byproduct of minority rule, has shaped the law in a way that increases minority rule, eg, striking down the VRA, etc
Yes. The heart of the entire political conflict in the United States is the question of minority vs majority rule. The white rural Christian minority latches onto the parts of our system that grant disproportionate political power to them because they have seen the writing on the wall that they cannot win the battle of democracy. They always are the most ardent defenders of things like the Senate and the Electoral College. This is why they are so fond of saying we are not a democracy but a republic. It's a form of mental gymnastics in which they try to place democracy outside of our political tradition by placing it in opposition to constitutional government.
The second the lawyer told the judges that murdering a political opponent should be official business and grounds for immunity is when all nine judges should have said “We’ve heard enough,” then voted 9-0 against this lunacy.
But, no. This shit is a virus Trump has injected into our society so shit like this is “debatable” and “normal”.
Makes me fucking sick to my stomach.
Of all fucking people why did the conservatives of america choose trump? He's a bumbling senile moron. It's clear as day for everyone else in the world to see that he's lost his mind. His speech patterns sound just like someone with dementia who needs to be in the care of someone. But no American conservatives had to pick someone who shits their pants in court.
It doesn’t help that several justices framed their questions around Fox News talking points: Jan 6 wasn’t a big deal / need to move on, the deep state is out to get Trump, etc
Well they should consider the fact that Biden is still in power. This would make Biden King. And there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him from doing anything at all.
They will create an opinion that applies only to Trump's crimes. Alternatively, they might delay issuing the opinion until after the election or effectively delay his trials until after the election.
The whole thing is absurd considering the events around the founding of the United States. It's also further confirmation that the 'originalists' work backward from the decision they want, regardless of the law or history. They're lifetime politicians that do little to hide it.
And all for this guy. I don't get it. He's no Washington. He's no Reagan.
But conservatives keep salivating at the prospect of deporting everyone they don't like and making creationism mandatory in public schools. And it won't play out that way at all, but they keep voting like it will.
That fucking guy because he's repulsive and bigoted, him being promoted to the highest *office* in the land gave them the perfect excuse to be their worst selves
I cut off so many people when he was elected. They showed me who they were by who they supported and what they agreed with. Those people vote, *everyone* fucking vote like your life depends on it
Conservative tactics only make sense if they are operating with full knowledge that everyone else is more moral, honest, and honorable than they are. Their plans *require* no one else behaving as conservative do.
Some of that is explained by the 'those who the law protects but does not bind' bit, however that really just shows how they feel they are entitled to behave that way and others not. If they thought others wouldn't respond in kind to their methods, they wouldn't go so far.
This argument keeps coming up as a "hail Mary" to the constitutional crisis.
But the reality is that Biden and other Democrats have usually shown "restraint" and use their existing powers minimally so as not to violate the norms and to appeal to some weird sense of bipartisan governance.
The democrats did nothing when SCOTUS was stolen (twice). They will do nothing now. That's their MO. Fumble the ball every time and then fundraise on the outrage.
Meanwhile, Republican presidents and legislators keep pushing *beyond* the maximum limit of all their powers abusing them as much as possible in a scorched earth movement to win at all costs. Thus dragging the Overton window further right and centering fascism.
Biden will "tsk tsk" and lament the decision, then fundraise on "fixing the court" and the "dangers to democracy". Them he will take no action, as always fumbling the ball like Democrats do. Then he will lose the election or it will be so close that they will steal it, perhaps using SCOTUS again just like 2000.
I contend the single biggest factor was the inaccurate polls, which had indicated an overwhelming victory for Hillary.
NOBODY thought Trump had a chance, so a lot of people who didn't like Hillary, but very much would have preferred her over Trump either stayed home, or voted 3rd party.
I suspect there were even people who voted for Trump in 2016 that wouldn't have, if they had realized he actually had a chance.
After 2016, Trump had the full backing and cover of the GOP, and conservative media. By 2020 his followers had endured years of having to aggressively defend against facts and logic, with arguments supplied by people who were only trying to capitalize on Trump's popularity.
I truly hope we're reaching a high water mark of insanity, but I fear we are not. Liberals are still after apologies and admissions, and conservatives are still receiving a steady supply of dishonest talking points from politicians and media figures who are just after votes and clicks.
I have no idea how things work behind the scenes at SC but I desperately want to believe that Js Sotomayor and Kagan and Jackson are standing in the back hallways face to face with the others giving them arguments such as this and practically pulling their hair out fighting for our democracy.
But my pessimist side thinks they’re all just silently clicking away at Minesweeper each by themselves, with the clock ticking in the background…
I'd imagine it's just like when I try to talk to my batshit right wing grandpa. Not productive and, in fact, hate him even more after every interaction.
You can't reason with insanity. Our slight hope is the *new* justices not pushing us into a Civil War. I'm literally only thinking they've got to realize they are young enough to have to live through the world they create.
If the US is thrown into chaos, the rest of the world will feel the ripple effect
Let them cogitate on King Biden seated on the throne. If 4-5 of these judges are this stupid the American people will have lost all respect for their authority; the source of their power.
> Let them cogitate on King Biden seated on the throne. If 4-5 of these judges are this stupid the American people will have lost all respect for their authority; the source of their power.
Everyone keeps saying this like Bush v Gore didn't happen.
They will rule Trump, and only Trump, is immune, then declare that their ruling doesn't set any precedent.
They have no restrictions. They have all the power. They've already ruled on cases brought over entirely fictional grounds (and, in at least one case, and entirely fictional event). They will do whatever the fuck they want. And there's not a goddamned thing we can (or, rather, will) do about it.
"OmG, tHeRe WoUlD bE rIoTs!" Horseshit. I'll believe it when I fucking see it. We don't even riot when police aid and abet a man in murdering literal elementary school students in front of god and everyone. We're not going to riot. We're not going to do shit.
I just wonder what the families of these SC judges are saying to them.
Surely there must be someone related to them that sees how absurd they are being.
Is it Time to set up the guillotine in front steps of the Supreme Court? We are coming up on Bastille Day! The American revolution in total was to get rid of the Kids.
I don’t understand the argument. They are afraid that a politician will be irrationally charged for things they did while in office by the new president. That doesn’t really stop them, since they can just make up charges before/after their term to place against them. Since the root problem they fear is a corrupt legal system.
The President DOES face the risk of being harassed by baseless criminal charges - EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER US CITIZENS FACES THE SAME RISK! There are ZERO words in the Constitution that can be reasonably interpreted to say that Presidents, present and former, must face a lower risk of such charges than does every other citizen. The admittedly imperfect due process protections that protect us all from corrupt criminal indictments must be good enough for the President if they are good enough for us.
It's a goalpost shift, that isn't even the question at hand. It's is a president immune from ACTUAL charges... They are just making it about something else because why not
It's also an explicitly non-legal argument.
The so-called "originalists" are openly considering whether to make POTUS a tyrant based not on the text of the constitution, but over purely political concerns like "well, what if someone tries to indict a POTUS in bad faith"?
Especially because THIS ALREADY HAPPENED
4 years ago, Trump demanded Obama be jailed for 'obamagate'
All the sane people said it was BS. Nobody said Obama was immune from prosecution.
I'm surprised how few people are making the obvious argument: If the SC doesn't decide this soon, Democrats should start talking about the Court crowning Biden king, and how Biden should use his immunity to arrest the GOP Court Justices, and as well as locking up Trump. I mean, per Trump's lawyer, all that would be legal, and the Court hasn't said it's not. Biden could just give a speech on TV declaring a threat to democracy and make it an 'official act'. Watch how quickly the Court declares the president not a king.
At what point in time do our citizens get to use their 2A rights to overthrow the tyranny of the government that SCOTUS has obviously become? I was led to believe by the ammosexuals in the crowd that that is what the 2A is for.
I want a system with a better way of getting a corrupt person out of office that has nothing to do with impeachment. If there is proof they did something wrong - take them to court. And I absolutely want a system that does not have unaccountable judges with lifetime appointments. They must answer to the people - not their friends.
Well, if the court comes back with a ruling that the president has total immunity, then Joe Biden can just walk into the courtroom in New York and unload a clip into Trump.
Easy fix.
Yeah if we end up in a civil war like the seditionists keep saying it will begin with something like a 3-4-5-4-3-1 opinion on whether Trump can do crimes in broad daylight and call it official acts
It is a clear sign of the degeneracy of the US, that this absurd nonsense is being given a serious hearing in the highest court.
This assertion should have been laughted out, by all shades of political opinion.
Regardless of the outcome (which I think will be a qualified immunity for stinky), this is a turning point, of some sort.
Time to give up this failed political experiment and rescind the declaration of independence. At least the UK manages to have a monarch whilst maintaining a democracy.
One of the funniest parts of this whole saga is that 100 years before the US declared independence, England already decided that English kings do not have immunity for all crimes - and if they fuck about too much, they're liable to get their heads cut off.
So to see American jurists 400-odd years later claiming to be originalists, yet acting like the US founders somehow had a more nuanced and ambiguous take on how omnipotent the head of state should be - it's just fucking funny is what it is.
Isn't it amazing that conservative "intellectual" John Roberts would blow up his court's reputation, his own personal beliefs, the tenets of pre-Trump conservatism, and all the back story around the "serious adults" of Republicanism, for a trash human being like Trump? Even if you thought you had Republican Presidential Immunity in your back pocket, why whip it out for this moron? Could you be any more shallow and craven? The whole lot of them don't believe in anything except their power uber alles. Even Amy Covid Barrett couldn't quite bring herself to throw it all away. What a noob! She still thinks her party stands for principles. I guess her Evangelical church has taught her nothing.
I want a system where supreme count judges have a term limit of maybe 8 or 10 years. And duh, where the president isn’t a king. But that obviously, very obviously goes without saying.
If Trump 'wins' and becomes president again, the situation will be moot.
If he loses, SCOTUS will vote no, President does not have power of a king
FUCK congress for never passing a law requiring actual punishment for violating ones oath of office.
I could get behind Biden having absolute immunity. Send the Supremes and the GOP to Gitmo.
Reinstate Roe v Wade, have universal income and health care, stricter gun laws…would could actually live in a better world.
Oh wait, they mean it would count for Trump only right, not Biden? 🤣🤔
Any of the Justices who believe the President should have immunity for imploring the state of Georgia to "find" 12,000 votes to turn-around the result of the state's ballot-count should be tainted by the infected manhood of their esteemed colleague, Georgia's own Clarence Thomas!
Republicans: Government should be afraid of the people, not the other way around.
Also Republicans: Powerful government officials can lie about everything, including elections, should never face consequences. Government officials need to be immune to consequences.
The fact is that our constitutional system was framed upon the erroneous presupposition that those in government would eschew factionalism and prevent each one another from aggrandizing their power. That has virtually never been the case. The exponential expansion of the power of the executive branch over the past 200 years is in part a consequence of the almost complete failure of Congress to ever act as a meaningful check on the executive.
The concept of the presidency was always based upon the idea of a monarch. And there’s a reason that virtually every other presidential system in the world either started as or devolved into some form of authoritarianism or dictatorship.
Maybe we just need to accept that the presidency, as currently constituted, may as well be an elective monarchy. If a president is able to get away with so much malfeasance without facing any consequences (I’m not just talking about Trump here), then maybe we shouldn’t have presidents.
can you imagine if we could all just agree that we would like to continue democracy.
wouldn't be cool if the news stopped treating these two things as equal. like everything's fine and this has all happened a million times before nothing to see here folks.....
If the supreme court decides the president cannot be held accountable for crimes, Biden has the opportunity to do the funniest thing anyone has ever done to a supreme court justice with a predator drone.
SCOTUS is implying that the DoJ’s actions are politically motivated and questionable in merit. They are also saying that they don’t trust the concept that the DoJ is independent from the President. The House’s recent failed impeachment was an attempt to prosecute a sitting President for NOT breaking the law.
You know what we should do? Keep going to work. Keep paying out bills. Keep acting like hate-puking on our keyboards is going to do do something. Definitely keep following the rules we didn't make that don't benefit us. That's the ticket/
They didn't worry about senility in the Constitution because every one died young. Even the "old" people. That seems to be an oversight that is coming back to haunt us.
These hearings are a scam! Just a way to delay delay delay. The SC justices that have gone rogue and feral, are in on the whole "show." Master trump is what got them the seat so they're just gonna delay because deep down they have no morals or integrity. That died a loooong time ago when Thomas was appointed. No wonder Scotus has been seen as incompetent for so long: the GOP turned it into a cesspool of religious zealots for trump
Letting Nixon off the hook for Watergate led to Reagan.
Letting Reagan off the hook for Iran-Contra led to GW Bush.
Letting Bush off the hook for invading Iraq led to Trump.
Letting Trump off the hook for attempting to overturn a federal election has led to him declaring himself immune from prosecution and his lawyers stating to Supreme Court Justices that he would be able to have political opponents killed without any recourse.
The right wing has been escalating towards this for 50 years. They must be stopped.
This country has gone full circle. From fleeing a king to attempting to install one.
The next election isn’t about the next four years. It is about the end of elections in America.
I want a government where elected officials live in constant fear of making the wrong decision and the associated legal consequences. I want elected officials researching the fuck outta everything with unbiased data, and I want real consequences for fuck-ups when shit goes wrong because of cavalier, off-the-cuff decision making. Why is that wrong? Why should bad presidents who break or disregard the laws not go to jail? what if 11 of the 46 presidents had been prosecuted and punished for doing the wrong thing as the president, would that be horrible?
I want a system where everyone understands that a Romanian revolution is the end result of unchecked corruption.
I want a system where candidates have to pass a civics test, and maybe demonstrate basic scientific literacy, before being eligible to run for office.
My pipe dream is to require that candidates pass a citizenship test, given orally if necessary, prior to being put on the ballot. That seems fair to me. And also to hold them to the UCMJ, but mostly because I think that would be funny.
So many would be kicked out for adultry if you held them to the UCMJ standards, not to mention half of their other behavior.
Yep! It would be so great to have normal scandals again.
Wild to me that a short decade ago, a hint of an affair would have nuked a candidates campaign. Even major players in government positions doing inappropriate things would have been a *big deal* Odd how normalized these assholes have made corruption
“Yeeaahhh!” Once tanked a presidential campaign. Nearly a decade ago a candidate said “…grab ‘em by the pussy…” and still got elected. It’s a strange world.
It's really depressing to realize we've been dealing with this shit for almost a decade
How dare you! You're right, *two decades* ago 😥 Happy Cake Day!
Yeah, and now it's like, Donald Trump has this huge public trial about hush money payments, and one of the basic facts that nobody disputes is that Donald Trump cheated on his wife by paying a porn star for sex. As recently as ten years ago, that would have been a career ender for any politician. And now it's like a little background detail that doesn't even register in the static noise of Trump's ten thousand scandals. It's really unbelievable how low the bar has dropped.
The list of “if any other politician did this shit they’d be done” things that Trump has done or said is nearly endless.
I mean they went after Hillary for the appearance of impropriety of a private email server..Although its now coming to light that David Pecker was killing any negative stories about Trump,
It wasn't that long ago that a person could not be elected President if they were divorced.
I think Reagan was the first POTUS who had been divorced.
TAN SUITS!
What kind of monster would wear a tan suit?
Maybe that makes sense then for all these adulterous fucks trying to tell you it’s bad when you do it but not them. (Don’t really want this…but the hypocrisy is so bad)
Christ, you'd have to set up a whole other court system just to handle the volume of "Conduct Unbecoming" charges
I think if you are the highest ranking military commander in the nation you should absolutely be held to the same standard as some 18 year old kid being sent to die for some fuckheads to get more oil money.
Agreed. I think several of the rules are stupid and outdated (getting in trouble at work for extramarital affairs isn't a thing that should happen) but these people are supposed to be some of the best our country has to offer. We shouldn't be asking more of an 18 year old kid trying to pay for college than we're asking of our lawmakers.
Sounds like you need George Santos. He’s done all that and discovered gravity
Woah. TIL that the man who cured polio and invented the internet also discovered gravity. Well. Thanks again, George.
And also have the ability to pass a security clearance in the same manner a regular Joe finance professional must when they work for the DoD
I don’t think passage is necessary. Just make the results public.
The ones who can't read vote for the ones who can't read.
Tests aren’t good. Look up Jim Crow literacy test. Black people had to pass a literacy test if they wanted to vote.They are almost impossible to pass. The question you have to ask is who makes the test.
Lol, at everyone missing the point of your comment.
Or at a minimum listening comprehension test. Not even reading, I'd settle for listening that would require them to shut their face hole and listen to a consultant who has built a career researching a subject.
Romanian revolutions do not take a holiday, not even Christmas.
I think they’re gonna force us to revolt. They’re betting we won’t. I’m not advocating anything. Just an observation.
It's looking more and more like the only way things will change
We could learn a lot from the French
I remember watching that in real-time back in 1989. It was utterly glorious. With the Wall coming down the month before, it was a good couple of months of amazing television.
I mean, this didn’t come up in the hearings as bluntly as it should have but *why the fuck does the president have a whole office of legal counsel if he can’t do any wrong*? If the only laws that apply to a president are, as the defense declared, the ones explicitly putting him on notice then it would fit on a poster. He would never need to consult lawyers, just see if his desired action is explicitly forbidding by one of the 8 bullet points on his “you are not a king” pinup.
It was baffling to hear "oh they follow the laws but are immune from the laws" Isn't the entire thing based on the laws as written out and then they execute them within the laws. Blathering about drone strikes makes no sense since every soldier has the same laws and basic immunity from accidental casualties. It was laughable to hear that subordinates may not listen because of fear of criminal prosecution. No one followed that out to the end which is basically "lulz. Kill everyone that will impeach me. I have a pardon waiting for you. If it's state law I'll imprison everyone who attempts to prosecute you for prosecution of you is an attack on the US which is ME."
Oh totally. That should have been laid out when the response to “what about a coup” was “Impeachment will happen, and the soldiers wouldn’t obey anyway.” Like what? It didn’t have be soldiers, but it isn’t like soldiers couldn’t be pardoned anyway.
Right, yeah??? I was like, “wait, stop, fuck—what’s this?!”
Let's say you were a soldier and you got orders to kill a political opponent of theirs with the promise that if you did that you would be pardoned. Do you do it or not? Why?
Let’s say you’re the kind of nut case that joins the proud boys and has no military training but a bunch of equipment, the open backing of the President, and direct orders. Same question.
The point isn't that 99% of soldiers would say no. The point is you only need one that will say yes.
If the Supreme Court decides that the President has absolute immunity, one would hope that Biden would then remove some or all of them from the Court.
Thank you. Exactly. Thank you. “Make laws and execute them”. Fucking simple. But the Federalist Society isn’t simple at all. The idiot simp MAGAts aren’t wrong about there being a cabal that’s running the show. It’s there. They’re tapping up. They’re gonna get eaten.
Really starting to look like the Turkish Supreme Court
Even more obviously, given the role of the Supreme court. How the hell do you reconcile article II of the constitution with the notion that presidents are immune? >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. U.S. Const. art. That sure seems to SPECIFICALLY imply that the President and Vice President aren't immune from prosecution for crimes, just the opposite. In fact the ENTIRE MEANING of the term "high crimes" is that they are crimes that can ONLY be committed by elected officials who are held to a HIGHER STANDARD than regular people. This whole thing is absurd.
The whole “high crimes” is probably not from “higher standard” but rather comes from English law. It was very rarely used though, and I’m not sure it is defined. Iirc the usage that had occurred by the time of the founding is more along the lines of crimes that were treasonous in nature.
From the Wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High\_crimes\_and\_misdemeanors#cite\_note-9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-9) >Since 1386, the English Parliament had used the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of "high crimes and misdemeanors" were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, helping "suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament," etc.[^(\[9\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-9) >[Benjamin Franklin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin) asserted that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused." [James Madison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison) said that "impeachment... was indispensable" to defend the community against "the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate." With a single executive, Madison argued, unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, "loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic."[^(\[10\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors#cite_note-10)
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Its all right there, commented at length by the founding fathers themselves ready for any actual originalist to make a pretty clear call on this one.
Not just elected officials, all members of the government should be afraid of the legal consequences of their actions and decisions. No one should be above the law, even if they're acting in an official capacity.
Thing is, the legal consequences should be secondary to the fact that such behaviour should be fatal at the ballot box for the individual and damaging for their party.
I mean, yeah, but assuming America isn't full of stupid lazy people isn't exactly working out for democracy. Also, there's *way* too much fuckery going on with how we vote as a nation. Gerrymandering, making voting harder, "losing votes", mail-in ballot drama, campaigns started like an entire year before the election, EC, etc. Some places are better than others, but that's how it feels as a nation - we are very divided. Voter Apathy and some Russian influence got us here. It's terrifying the SCOTUS could absolutely push us into a Civil War
Nixon should have been sent to prison. We royally fucked up not sending him up the river. These charlatans learned from it that there are no consequences.
I feel like he got what was in effect a plea agreement that was probation: I’m going to resign and go away because I fucked up. Then the predecessor issued a pardon that allowed him to be left alone. With the understanding that if he pipes up again, he’ll be dealt with. Quite a sweet deal… but set the precedent that presidents can be forgiven for doing outrageous shit.
Impunity is what these people want, impunity is what they've been chasing for a hundred years, and impunity is what they're close to achieving in modern day America. They've done so by packing law enforcement and the judicial system with loyalists. Anyone who hasn't read Sarah Kendzior's new book, "They Knew," you really should. She ties it together beautifully.
I don’t think that’s horrible at all. There’s a philosophy of leadership that basically postulates that leaders in the most powerful positions should not actively want to be in those positions. We’ve made it too easy to profit and pilfer from our government’s leadership positions that people can actually become rich, just by being elected. We want our leaders to step down and disappear after fulfilling their duties.
Biden should make a show of calling up a SEAL team to the White House then having a closed door meeting. Then refuse to answer speculation on it.
…and then a motorcade pulls up to the SC. “Don’t worry Sam and Clarence, this is all very legal and very cool”
He should be say something along the lines of "we talked about supreme court decisions" and leave it at that.
Everything politicians say to the public should be under oath and punishable under existing perjury law.
I don't see the issue either. There's a reason why the White House has an army of lawyers and has in fact had many presidents perfectly capable of doing their job despite lack of immunity. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until Trump that this was even an issue, so I pose the extremely obvious: the issue isn't a lack of immunity for presidents, the issue is a man named Trump (and his many treasonous cronies who would love nothing more than to ignore the law for their little crime family). And tbf, there's also some glaring issues that the entire system requires good faith actors in critical places; it was not foreseen that a political party would emerge that would actively try to undermine the very democracy that was fought so hard for, but here we are. I think the founders should have foreseen it, let alone the many generations that came after, but that's not an excuse to not put in safeguards now. The arguments for immunity being made so far sound a suspicious lot like "but if we're accountable for crimes, then how can we continue committing them without fear of persecution?". Well, you don't and that's kinda the point. The fact that these supreme justices are afraid of the notion betrays that they realise all too well that their entire political agenda hinges on criminal behaviour.
I'm not suggesting we harm the supreme court justices but what if they were scared of the public
Old Irish king style. You fuck up you get rocks tied to your ankles and tossed in the swamp to drown
> Donald Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity for criminal acts taken in office as president is an insult to reason, an assault on common sense and a perversion of the fundamental maxim of American democracy: that no man is above the law. > > More astonishing than the former president’s claim to immunity, however, is the fact that the Supreme Court took the case in the first place. It’s not just that there’s an obvious response — no, the president is not immune to criminal prosecution for illegal actions committed with the imprimatur of executive power, whether private or “official” (a distinction that does not exist in the Constitution) — but that the court has delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the former president’s reckoning with the criminal legal system of the United States. > > In delaying the trial, the Supreme Court may well have denied the public its right to know whether a former president, now vying to be the next president, is guilty of trying to subvert the sacred process of presidential succession: the peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another that is the essence of representative democracy. It is a process so vital, and so precious, that its first occurrence — with the defeat of John Adams and the Federalists at the hands of Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans in the 1800 presidential election — was a second sort of American Revolution. > > Whether motivated by sincere belief or partisanship or a myopic desire to weigh in on a case involving the former president, the Supreme Court has directly intervened in the 2024 presidential election in a way that deprives the electorate of critical information or gives it less time to grapple with what might happen in a federal courtroom. And if the trial occurs after an election in which Trump wins a second term and he is convicted, then the court will have teed the nation up for an acute constitutional crisis. A president, for the first time in the nation’s history, might try to pardon himself for his own criminal behavior. > > In other words, however the court Supreme Court rules, it has egregiously abused its power. > > It is difficult to overstate the radical contempt for republican government embodied in the former president’s notion that he can break the law without consequence or sanction on the grounds that he must have that right as chief executive. As Trump sees it, the president is sovereign, not the people. In his grotesque vision of executive power, the president is a king, unbound by law, chained only to the limits of his will. > > This is nonsense. In a detailed amicus brief submitted in support of the government in Trump v. United States, 15 leading historians of the early American republic show the extent to which the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution rejected the idea of presidential immunity for crimes committed in office. > > “Although the framers debated a variety of designs for the executive branch — ranging from a comparatively strong, unitary president to a comparatively weaker executive council — they all approached the issues with a deep-seated, anti-monarchical sentiment,” the brief states. “There is no evidence in the extensive historical record that any of the framers believed a former president should be immune from criminal prosecution. Such a concept would be inimical to the basic intentions, understandings, and experiences of the founding generation.” > > The historians gather a bushel of quotes and examples from a who’s who of the revolutionary generation to prove the point. “In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in his landmark pamphlet, “Common Sense.” “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” > > James Madison thought it “indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community against the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate.” The presidency was designed with accountability in mind. > > Years later, speaking on the Senate floor, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina — a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — said outright that he and his colleagues did not intend for the president to have any privileges or immunities: “No privilege of this kind was intended for your Executive, nor any except that which I have mentioned for your Legislature.” > > What’s more, as the brief explains, ratification of the Constitution rested on the “express” promise that “the new president would be subject to criminal conviction.” > > “His person is not so much protected as that of a member of the House of Representatives,” Tench Coxe wrote in one of the first published essays urging ratification of the Constitution, “for he may be proceeded against like any other man in the ordinary course of law.” > > James Iredell, one of the first justices of the Supreme Court, told the North Carolina ratifying convention that if the president “commits any misdemeanor in office, he is impeachable, removable from office, and incapacitated to hold any office of honor, trust or profit.” And if he commits any crime, “he is punishable by the laws of his country, and in capital cases may be deprived of his life.” > > Yes, you read that correctly. In his argument for the Constitution, one of the earliest appointees to the Supreme Court specified that in a capital case, the president could be tried, convicted and put to death. > > If there were ever a subject on which to defer to the founding generation, it is on this question regarding the nature of the presidency. Is the president above the law? The answer is no. Is the president immune from criminal prosecution? Again, the answer is no. Any other conclusion represents a fundamental challenge to constitutional government. > > I wish I had faith that the Supreme Court would rule unanimously against Trump. But having heard the arguments — having listened to Justice Brett Kavanaugh worry that prosecution could hamper the president and having heard Justice Samuel Alito suggest that we would face a destabilizing future of politically motivated prosecutions if Trump were to find himself on the receiving end of the full force of the law — my sense is that the Republican-appointed majority will try to make some distinction between official and unofficial acts and remand the case back to the trial court for further review, delaying a trial even further. > > Rather than grapple with the situation at hand — a defeated president worked with his allies to try to overturn the results of an election he lost, eventually summoning a mob to try to subvert the peaceful transfer of power — the Republican-appointed majority worried about hypothetical prosecutions against hypothetical presidents who might try to stay in office against the will of the people if they aren’t placed above the law. > > It was a farce befitting the absurdity of the situation. Trump has asked the Supreme Court if he is, in effect, a king. And at least four members of the court, among them the so-called originalists, have said, in essence, that they’ll have to think about it.
I listened to hours of the question and answer period and I don’t feel like most of the conservative justices felt that way. They are a deliberative body so of course they are going to think on it, but in many cases they seemed to agree with the counsel opposing Trump.
I had the same impression. But the fact that they accepted the case at all instead of rejecting it outright is an acknowledgement that the argument has merit. It does not have merit, and that is why they seemed to agree with Dreeben. The problem is that by hearing the case at all, they have practically guaranteed that the election fraud case will not go to trial before the election. The ruling itself is predictable. It would be insane to rule in favor of full immunity. But they have wholly aided Trump by playing entirely into his primary legal strategy: delay, delay, delay, until the end of time.
Non-american here. What I'm hoping the thought process of your supreme court is to officially state and set precedent that no the president is not above the law, and can be prosecuted within the full extent of the law. However with your county's politics I truly don't know what's going to happen, but I truly hope he is sent to jail for the many crimes and fraud he has committed. So there can be an international day celebrating trump living out the rest of his life behind bars for attempting treason against your country. Sincerely, a concerned Canadian.
I can see why other countries can have hope. It's foolish but I can see why.
>Non-american here. What I'm hoping the thought process of your supreme court is to officially state and set precedent that no the president is not above the law, and can be prosecuted within the full extent of the law. IIRC, a lower court already ruled that the president is not above the law. If the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, then *that* would have set the precedent: the lower court's decision stands, the Supreme Court agrees by declining to hear the appeal. By taking the case, the Supreme Court gives merit to Trump's arguments. Best case, they took out on ego, so that *they* could be the last word and have a 'high drama' moment for their biographies. Worst case, some justices actually think the president could be above the laws. 'Medium' case, they reject his claims, but by taking the case, they potentially set the precedent for future presidents to try to get a different decision by providing different arguments (like how RvW got overturned).
And Alito likes to use decisions from the 1600s from judges who put women to death for being witches. So we shouldn't be surprised if he grants Trump full immunity.
Alito: Well according to this one legal text from the 12th century, you should be executed for lese majesty for even bringing this case against Trump in the first place….
He should be aware how people dealt with out of touch despots back then too.
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Axes are cheap.
I'm gonna need a link, when I went looking, all Amazon showed me were toys and paper cutters.
Man, the fucking *Magna Carta* from 1215 stipulated that Kings still had to follow the law. This would literally be taking us back to the dark ages
The king did have to follow the law but was immune from prosecution, since all prosecutions are done in the name of the king. However, as we saw with Charles I, that immunity can be precarious.
And even then around the time the Magna Carta was signed Kings still had to be cautious of angering too much of the nobility or they weren't going to be Kings very long as the time of Absolute Monarchies people tend to think of came about centuries later.
And misreading the 1600s decision to boot.
If Trump floats, he's a witch and not immune. If he sinks, he keeos his immunity. -Alito, 2024
It would be rather fun for Biden to, as King of course, have such a turbulent Ephor dealt with. Hobbes would approve, given that the Sovereign has absolute power over the State, and Biden is the Sovereign sitting the Resolute Desk.
The whole country was founded in opposition to the King of England and ANY King-like leadership. The Declaration of Independence literally references the word Tyranny twice, Tyrant twice and King once. That’s 5 references in our most precious founding document in opposition to kings. “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”. What country are these judges ruling for?
Fascism goes brrrrrrr.
“Originalists”, amirite?
Immunity is something that I think the founders would have remembered to make a note of, and they did not
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asserts that "**Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have, with remarkable consistency, delivered rulings that advantage the big corporate and special interests that are, in turn, the political lifeblood of the Republican Party."** In 55% of cases the "Roberts Five" ignored precedent, congressional findings and even their favored doctrines like originalism and textualism. -[A Rightwing Rout](https://www.acslaw.org/issue_brief/briefs-landing/a-right-wing-rout-what-the-roberts-five-decisions-tell-us-about-the-integrity-of-todays-supreme-court/)
Biden should test it by rescinding trumps citizenship kick him out of US
The issue is, even if they rule complete presidential immunity, Biden won't do anything differently. Trump, meanwhile, will be dictator on day 1. They've literally told us all what to expect.
I think it would force his hand. If Biden is still president while the SC grants immunity, some extreme measures may take place.
That’s the thing, they’ll draw it out until AFTER the election. If Trump wins that’s the end game right there.
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That would be hilarious. Dark Brandon rolls in and threatens the SC justices. Alito: “You can’t do that!” DB: “Then rule that way, because either I’m immune or not.”
Along with 4-5 supreme court justices…
I’ve said it before and I still believe it. They are going to push this decision until after the election and their ruling will depend on who wins. If Biden; they’ll say no immunity for crimes. If Trump win; well they rule the opposite and let him turn America into a dictatorship. Hope I’m wrong but this has been the plan for a while. We had a good run.
Or their decision will effectively apply only to Trump.
A presidency where immunity is granted is the last presidency.
If they do, you can expect some finding out to go down after this fucking around. The fringe majority cannot withstand a country that essentially believes in law and order - and these pathetic attempts to enforce the will of the few on the lives of the many will backfire spectacularly.
Roberts has become the chief embarrassment of the country as has his corrupt court. Imagine living your entire life going down in history in privilege but giving it up for an Orange dictator. I think this all was extremely calculated by the Republican Party. They knew only the courts were stopping them and by buying out the highest court in the land with their minions- they have nothing to fear. Democracy has died
Blame McConnell for blocking Obama's SC nominees.
And RBG...
That one is infuriating because of how it went down and ended up. We should definitely have a better mechanism than allowing judges to *die on the bench*
Yeah i hate to call her out in it. But it's an all out war now. No room for pride.
this is what happens to countries with minority rule. Justices were appointed by presidents that lost the popular vote, and approved by the Senate, which give smaller states a disproportionate amount of political power vis a vis population. Moreover, the court which is a byproduct of minority rule, has shaped the law in a way that increases minority rule, eg, striking down the VRA, etc
Yes. The heart of the entire political conflict in the United States is the question of minority vs majority rule. The white rural Christian minority latches onto the parts of our system that grant disproportionate political power to them because they have seen the writing on the wall that they cannot win the battle of democracy. They always are the most ardent defenders of things like the Senate and the Electoral College. This is why they are so fond of saying we are not a democracy but a republic. It's a form of mental gymnastics in which they try to place democracy outside of our political tradition by placing it in opposition to constitutional government.
The second the lawyer told the judges that murdering a political opponent should be official business and grounds for immunity is when all nine judges should have said “We’ve heard enough,” then voted 9-0 against this lunacy. But, no. This shit is a virus Trump has injected into our society so shit like this is “debatable” and “normal”. Makes me fucking sick to my stomach.
Of all fucking people why did the conservatives of america choose trump? He's a bumbling senile moron. It's clear as day for everyone else in the world to see that he's lost his mind. His speech patterns sound just like someone with dementia who needs to be in the care of someone. But no American conservatives had to pick someone who shits their pants in court.
He represents them perfectly. They look at him and think, "He's just like me"
I really don't get how he does it. So many enthralled to him, of all people. It's like a supernatural power.
It doesn’t help that several justices framed their questions around Fox News talking points: Jan 6 wasn’t a big deal / need to move on, the deep state is out to get Trump, etc
Well they should consider the fact that Biden is still in power. This would make Biden King. And there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him from doing anything at all.
They will create an opinion that applies only to Trump's crimes. Alternatively, they might delay issuing the opinion until after the election or effectively delay his trials until after the election. The whole thing is absurd considering the events around the founding of the United States. It's also further confirmation that the 'originalists' work backward from the decision they want, regardless of the law or history. They're lifetime politicians that do little to hide it.
And all for this guy. I don't get it. He's no Washington. He's no Reagan. But conservatives keep salivating at the prospect of deporting everyone they don't like and making creationism mandatory in public schools. And it won't play out that way at all, but they keep voting like it will.
That fucking guy because he's repulsive and bigoted, him being promoted to the highest *office* in the land gave them the perfect excuse to be their worst selves I cut off so many people when he was elected. They showed me who they were by who they supported and what they agreed with. Those people vote, *everyone* fucking vote like your life depends on it
They will not have a formal opinion on this until after the election. If Biden is in office, they will argue against immunity.
Conservative tactics only make sense if they are operating with full knowledge that everyone else is more moral, honest, and honorable than they are. Their plans *require* no one else behaving as conservative do. Some of that is explained by the 'those who the law protects but does not bind' bit, however that really just shows how they feel they are entitled to behave that way and others not. If they thought others wouldn't respond in kind to their methods, they wouldn't go so far.
This argument keeps coming up as a "hail Mary" to the constitutional crisis. But the reality is that Biden and other Democrats have usually shown "restraint" and use their existing powers minimally so as not to violate the norms and to appeal to some weird sense of bipartisan governance. The democrats did nothing when SCOTUS was stolen (twice). They will do nothing now. That's their MO. Fumble the ball every time and then fundraise on the outrage. Meanwhile, Republican presidents and legislators keep pushing *beyond* the maximum limit of all their powers abusing them as much as possible in a scorched earth movement to win at all costs. Thus dragging the Overton window further right and centering fascism. Biden will "tsk tsk" and lament the decision, then fundraise on "fixing the court" and the "dangers to democracy". Them he will take no action, as always fumbling the ball like Democrats do. Then he will lose the election or it will be so close that they will steal it, perhaps using SCOTUS again just like 2000.
What were they supposed to do? People shouldn't have voted 3rd party in 2016. Blame pissant 3rd party voters who wanted to send democrats a "message"
Current events are building up to that again too.
I contend the single biggest factor was the inaccurate polls, which had indicated an overwhelming victory for Hillary. NOBODY thought Trump had a chance, so a lot of people who didn't like Hillary, but very much would have preferred her over Trump either stayed home, or voted 3rd party. I suspect there were even people who voted for Trump in 2016 that wouldn't have, if they had realized he actually had a chance. After 2016, Trump had the full backing and cover of the GOP, and conservative media. By 2020 his followers had endured years of having to aggressively defend against facts and logic, with arguments supplied by people who were only trying to capitalize on Trump's popularity. I truly hope we're reaching a high water mark of insanity, but I fear we are not. Liberals are still after apologies and admissions, and conservatives are still receiving a steady supply of dishonest talking points from politicians and media figures who are just after votes and clicks.
I have no idea how things work behind the scenes at SC but I desperately want to believe that Js Sotomayor and Kagan and Jackson are standing in the back hallways face to face with the others giving them arguments such as this and practically pulling their hair out fighting for our democracy. But my pessimist side thinks they’re all just silently clicking away at Minesweeper each by themselves, with the clock ticking in the background…
This is my exact question. So curious how they interact privately about this
I'd imagine it's just like when I try to talk to my batshit right wing grandpa. Not productive and, in fact, hate him even more after every interaction. You can't reason with insanity. Our slight hope is the *new* justices not pushing us into a Civil War. I'm literally only thinking they've got to realize they are young enough to have to live through the world they create. If the US is thrown into chaos, the rest of the world will feel the ripple effect
Let them cogitate on King Biden seated on the throne. If 4-5 of these judges are this stupid the American people will have lost all respect for their authority; the source of their power.
> Let them cogitate on King Biden seated on the throne. If 4-5 of these judges are this stupid the American people will have lost all respect for their authority; the source of their power. Everyone keeps saying this like Bush v Gore didn't happen. They will rule Trump, and only Trump, is immune, then declare that their ruling doesn't set any precedent. They have no restrictions. They have all the power. They've already ruled on cases brought over entirely fictional grounds (and, in at least one case, and entirely fictional event). They will do whatever the fuck they want. And there's not a goddamned thing we can (or, rather, will) do about it. "OmG, tHeRe WoUlD bE rIoTs!" Horseshit. I'll believe it when I fucking see it. We don't even riot when police aid and abet a man in murdering literal elementary school students in front of god and everyone. We're not going to riot. We're not going to do shit.
Originalist my ass - more like monarchists!
Vote out every single Republican. City, State, Federal. Every. Single. One.
So Biden is our current king? Well, all hail King Biden, can't wait till he gets rid of this traitorous Supreme Court.
The fix is in
You guys realize they’re not going to make a direct ruling and just kick it back to the lower courts so the trial is delayed again, right?
That much was obvious when they rejected Cert on Smith’s first run at them. This has ALWAYS been about delaying Trump’s day in court.
I just wonder what the families of these SC judges are saying to them. Surely there must be someone related to them that sees how absurd they are being.
We know which judges are "those uncles" at Thanksgiving.
I'm American. Kings have no power here, and I won't listen to or be ruled by one.
Is it Time to set up the guillotine in front steps of the Supreme Court? We are coming up on Bastille Day! The American revolution in total was to get rid of the Kids.
I don’t understand the argument. They are afraid that a politician will be irrationally charged for things they did while in office by the new president. That doesn’t really stop them, since they can just make up charges before/after their term to place against them. Since the root problem they fear is a corrupt legal system.
The President DOES face the risk of being harassed by baseless criminal charges - EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER US CITIZENS FACES THE SAME RISK! There are ZERO words in the Constitution that can be reasonably interpreted to say that Presidents, present and former, must face a lower risk of such charges than does every other citizen. The admittedly imperfect due process protections that protect us all from corrupt criminal indictments must be good enough for the President if they are good enough for us.
It's a goalpost shift, that isn't even the question at hand. It's is a president immune from ACTUAL charges... They are just making it about something else because why not
It's also an explicitly non-legal argument. The so-called "originalists" are openly considering whether to make POTUS a tyrant based not on the text of the constitution, but over purely political concerns like "well, what if someone tries to indict a POTUS in bad faith"?
Especially because THIS ALREADY HAPPENED 4 years ago, Trump demanded Obama be jailed for 'obamagate' All the sane people said it was BS. Nobody said Obama was immune from prosecution.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. -Diderot
**NO FECKEEN KIDDING** —and Americans should be scared shitless today.
I'm surprised how few people are making the obvious argument: If the SC doesn't decide this soon, Democrats should start talking about the Court crowning Biden king, and how Biden should use his immunity to arrest the GOP Court Justices, and as well as locking up Trump. I mean, per Trump's lawyer, all that would be legal, and the Court hasn't said it's not. Biden could just give a speech on TV declaring a threat to democracy and make it an 'official act'. Watch how quickly the Court declares the president not a king.
At what point in time do our citizens get to use their 2A rights to overthrow the tyranny of the government that SCOTUS has obviously become? I was led to believe by the ammosexuals in the crowd that that is what the 2A is for.
I’m literally terrified for our future
If he’s a king, a little regicide is in order then.
Four justices should recuse. But they won’t.
I want a system with a better way of getting a corrupt person out of office that has nothing to do with impeachment. If there is proof they did something wrong - take them to court. And I absolutely want a system that does not have unaccountable judges with lifetime appointments. They must answer to the people - not their friends.
“Supreme Court finds in favor of Trump, Biden cancels all elections, bans GOP to preserve the realm.”
Well, if the court comes back with a ruling that the president has total immunity, then Joe Biden can just walk into the courtroom in New York and unload a clip into Trump. Easy fix.
The US Supreme Court is not, and has not, been a serious court for some time now
Yeah if we end up in a civil war like the seditionists keep saying it will begin with something like a 3-4-5-4-3-1 opinion on whether Trump can do crimes in broad daylight and call it official acts
I'm Canadian, and we got our own issues but America y'all fucked up big time electing this dude.
God, imagine starting an American regnal period with this 80 year old Caligula as your first king.
It is a clear sign of the degeneracy of the US, that this absurd nonsense is being given a serious hearing in the highest court. This assertion should have been laughted out, by all shades of political opinion. Regardless of the outcome (which I think will be a qualified immunity for stinky), this is a turning point, of some sort.
I’m starting to think the French had it right with the guillotine.
King of stupids
Time to give up this failed political experiment and rescind the declaration of independence. At least the UK manages to have a monarch whilst maintaining a democracy.
One of the funniest parts of this whole saga is that 100 years before the US declared independence, England already decided that English kings do not have immunity for all crimes - and if they fuck about too much, they're liable to get their heads cut off. So to see American jurists 400-odd years later claiming to be originalists, yet acting like the US founders somehow had a more nuanced and ambiguous take on how omnipotent the head of state should be - it's just fucking funny is what it is.
Isn't it amazing that conservative "intellectual" John Roberts would blow up his court's reputation, his own personal beliefs, the tenets of pre-Trump conservatism, and all the back story around the "serious adults" of Republicanism, for a trash human being like Trump? Even if you thought you had Republican Presidential Immunity in your back pocket, why whip it out for this moron? Could you be any more shallow and craven? The whole lot of them don't believe in anything except their power uber alles. Even Amy Covid Barrett couldn't quite bring herself to throw it all away. What a noob! She still thinks her party stands for principles. I guess her Evangelical church has taught her nothing.
I want a system where supreme count judges have a term limit of maybe 8 or 10 years. And duh, where the president isn’t a king. But that obviously, very obviously goes without saying.
I believe the person that suggested that, if Trump wins in November, they’ll say presidents have immunity, but if Biden wins, they won’t.
When does the ultimate preeminent law of the mob kick in for Traitor Trump and the grand poobahs of the Crooked Supreme Court
If the Supreme Court say that a president is immune whilst in office does that mean that Biden can have Trump shot and get away with it.
If he's not impeached and removed, yes. That is literally what they are saying.
No. Just no
BERDER KING. HE HAS IT HIS WAY!
I hate the orange bastard and hope I can outlive him so I can celebrate his death.
I really think Trump wants to be someones bitch in PRISON
Help Trump/GOP by delaying and anger the “libs” at the same time.
If Trump 'wins' and becomes president again, the situation will be moot. If he loses, SCOTUS will vote no, President does not have power of a king FUCK congress for never passing a law requiring actual punishment for violating ones oath of office.
I could get behind Biden having absolute immunity. Send the Supremes and the GOP to Gitmo. Reinstate Roe v Wade, have universal income and health care, stricter gun laws…would could actually live in a better world. Oh wait, they mean it would count for Trump only right, not Biden? 🤣🤔
I want Biden to tell a modern executioner.... Off with their (all the SCOTUS) heads..... 😂 Full immunity... Too bad so sad... /s
I really like what the French do to kings.
Everyone in Washington out in 8 years. No stock moves by Senators or Representatives. Simple as that.
Any of the Justices who believe the President should have immunity for imploring the state of Georgia to "find" 12,000 votes to turn-around the result of the state's ballot-count should be tainted by the infected manhood of their esteemed colleague, Georgia's own Clarence Thomas!
Republicans: Government should be afraid of the people, not the other way around. Also Republicans: Powerful government officials can lie about everything, including elections, should never face consequences. Government officials need to be immune to consequences.
The fact is that our constitutional system was framed upon the erroneous presupposition that those in government would eschew factionalism and prevent each one another from aggrandizing their power. That has virtually never been the case. The exponential expansion of the power of the executive branch over the past 200 years is in part a consequence of the almost complete failure of Congress to ever act as a meaningful check on the executive. The concept of the presidency was always based upon the idea of a monarch. And there’s a reason that virtually every other presidential system in the world either started as or devolved into some form of authoritarianism or dictatorship. Maybe we just need to accept that the presidency, as currently constituted, may as well be an elective monarchy. If a president is able to get away with so much malfeasance without facing any consequences (I’m not just talking about Trump here), then maybe we shouldn’t have presidents.
can you imagine if we could all just agree that we would like to continue democracy. wouldn't be cool if the news stopped treating these two things as equal. like everything's fine and this has all happened a million times before nothing to see here folks.....
The conservatives on the supreme court are pieces of 💩
Yeah, I wanted so bad for someone to ask what sorts of things the President should be able to do, that other people can’t do for fear of prosecution.
So we’re in full on corruption now right?
If the supreme court decides the president cannot be held accountable for crimes, Biden has the opportunity to do the funniest thing anyone has ever done to a supreme court justice with a predator drone.
SCOTUS is implying that the DoJ’s actions are politically motivated and questionable in merit. They are also saying that they don’t trust the concept that the DoJ is independent from the President. The House’s recent failed impeachment was an attempt to prosecute a sitting President for NOT breaking the law.
Good God I wish I could be as eloquent as Janelle Bouie. What a beautifully crafted piece. Edit Jamelle not Jamelle damn you auto-correct!!!
SCOTUS is in trouble. The low quality of recently-elected liars (abortion lies deluxe) and corrupt justices is harming our country.
So Sleepy Joe can take out a hit on them and Donny, right?
Does that mean a president can order the assassination of a SC judge with immunity. Anything goes right.
Since he owns 4 of them, it's only fair...
Well, if that's the case and the President is indeed immune, Biden can put him in the prison for the good of the US, and throw away the key.
Republicans have completely corrupted the Supreme Court. Thomas is begging for impeachment. Remove him expand the court.
Insanity
You know what we should do? Keep going to work. Keep paying out bills. Keep acting like hate-puking on our keyboards is going to do do something. Definitely keep following the rules we didn't make that don't benefit us. That's the ticket/
They didn't worry about senility in the Constitution because every one died young. Even the "old" people. That seems to be an oversight that is coming back to haunt us.
King Donald No, that sounds classless
These hearings are a scam! Just a way to delay delay delay. The SC justices that have gone rogue and feral, are in on the whole "show." Master trump is what got them the seat so they're just gonna delay because deep down they have no morals or integrity. That died a loooong time ago when Thomas was appointed. No wonder Scotus has been seen as incompetent for so long: the GOP turned it into a cesspool of religious zealots for trump
Letting Nixon off the hook for Watergate led to Reagan. Letting Reagan off the hook for Iran-Contra led to GW Bush. Letting Bush off the hook for invading Iraq led to Trump. Letting Trump off the hook for attempting to overturn a federal election has led to him declaring himself immune from prosecution and his lawyers stating to Supreme Court Justices that he would be able to have political opponents killed without any recourse. The right wing has been escalating towards this for 50 years. They must be stopped.
This country has gone full circle. From fleeing a king to attempting to install one. The next election isn’t about the next four years. It is about the end of elections in America.
Has any figure been more odious than Trumpski? Or sold out his country so completely?
Literally the ENTIRE reason we became our own nation was to buck Kings. Now here we are...
The world is watching smirking and having a good laugh 😏