“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the supreme court of the United States.”
Throughout his address, Biden underscored the gravity of the moment, emphasizing that the only barrier to the president’s authority now lies in the personal restraint of the officeholder. He warned vehemently against the prospect of Trump returning to power, painting a stark picture of the dangers such an outcome could pose.
So, obviously he could just [redacted] the supreme court justices he doesn’t like, appoint new ones, and then the only thing congress could do would be to expand the court or whatever, right? but then why couldn’t he also just keep killing people in official acts until he gets a bunch of people that are like “yup, that was official and you don’t need to do anything about it”? I know that’s probably a slippery slope, right and would probably get him a shit ton of public pushback, especially after a certain point, from both conservatives, who predominantly make up the military, and economic power structures, to liberals who would prize decorum and “fair play” above all else (but I repeat myself), and so maybe that leads to a dissolution of society, which maybe leads to an even worse society as the people who control the levers of power are already the most horrible people, but, yadda yadda.
But, I dunno, how many congress people does he have to make go away, before the rest of them start to get the picture and then start to behave in their own self-interest, as they’ve always behaved? How many people do you really have to threaten in a system where the people who climb to the top are only going to be there out of their own extreme self-interest?
Biden needs to exercise his expanded rights as President to save America by removing agents from all branches of the government who have been working to undermine America. Congress members, Supreme Court Justices, and Presidential candidates with ties to Russia or far-right nationalists should be removed by any means necessary. We’re essentially at war with Russia and we’ve been allowing foreign agents to work against us from inside our country. Take the gloves off and remove those people, they’re trash people who will do it first if/when they get into power next. They’re pretty clearly broadcasting their plans to turn the US into a dictatorship and the SCOTUS just handed them the power to do it the next time they win an election.
We need someone that will use every tool at their disposal to stop trump.
Biden has shown time and time again, that’s he’s just not willing to do that.
Stopping trump is more important than Biden, if he won’t fight, and he won’t get out of the way, and the party won’t force him to…
It’s time to ask why we still support the party. The voters are the irreplaceable part, not the party.
The problem with that, is now “every tool at their disposal to stop trump” is an object lesson in exactly what Biden is talking about.
‘Every tool’ means Every tool
Biden could have expanded the courts 4 years ago, but he didnt.
This could have never happened.
Roe vs Wade could still be standing.
So much shit could be better, but Biden didn’t want to fight.
Biden could not have expanded the court. That requires an act of Congress. Even if the Democrats passed such an act in the House, it would have been dead in the Senate because they have never had the needed supermajority and none of the Republicans would have voted for it.
“In my view, we need a strong Republican Party. We need a Republican Party that’s united.”
-Joe Biden (~2011)
The man is just incompetent and nostalgic for the “good old days” when Dems and Republicans would play grab ass together and hoodwink the public together to protect the status quo and grow the wealth divide. This whole fascism thing, though clearly signaled decades ago, has him scratching his head. He simply doesn’t get it and is too mentally calcified to keep up with the paradigm shift in politics.
You grabbed a completely out of context quote from 13-14 years ago as you complain that he is nostalgic (for what…?)
Where do I begin?
It’s not out of context, it’s exactly what he said and meant. And he’s repeated that sentiment on multiple occassions.
If you need a more recent example to ignore, in 2022 he attempted to make some kind of distinction between MAGA and non-MAGA republicans because he still is dumb enough to believe there’s some contingent within the GOP that’s not fully onboard with fascism. Even after the decades of lies and double-dealing, of Republicans pushing to capture the courts and voting consistently to strip Americans of their rights, it hasn’t sunk in. Not even after January 6, after the whole party united behind Trump.
He actually thinks there needs to be a balance between “good” Republicans and Democrats, which is a deeply idiotic notion at this point and betrays the fact that he doesn’t actually want to achieve any of the progressive policy he cribbed off Sanders to win in 2020.
Wasnt trump still a Democrat back then? It’s like people never change…wait …
Biden hasn’t changed though. He’s still the same old pro-austerity, pro-corporate, “respectably racist” Republican-at-heart conservative he’s always been. You just can’t see it because Trump is so much more extreme.
So why Bush was never held accountable for his war crimes and biden won’t either.
Whatever point you are making that they are treated as kings, it doesn’t mean we should make it any easier for them lmao.
I’m not saying that trump shouldn’t be held accountable and go to jail. I just don’t want to hear that for biden
Instead of issuing a scathing rebuke shouldn’t he just mount a posse and pay them a visit now that he can do whatever he wants?
If only he were in some position of power to do something about it hmmmmmm.
He says that, but has no problem issuing pardons, which is about as king-like as it gets. It circumvents the legal and judicial structure of the entire nation, and he can do so on a whim. It’s true that, unlike Trump, he’s only pardoned people deserving of pardons, but that’s not really the fuckin’ point, is it?
He’s so pissed about it he’s gonna do absolutely nothing!
I would love to see him detain every scotus justice and stash em in a safe house for their protection/national security. Give them no freedom of movement or agency over their lives… see if they change their tune.
This sounds like it would be way more effective than the obvious bullshit that came to my mind. I’m with you.
You apparently want him to do illegal things because he can now get away with it?
edit: are basic norms being downvoted here because if republicans are corrupt af, we should not have any standards either?
Edit 2: you’re not teaching me anything by telling me the Republicans did something more fucked up first. Do you people honestly think Biden would/could murder political opponents. He obviously won’t. He shouldn’t. Jfc
Edit 3: yup I’m totally saying let’s do nothing about this. You people are brilliant.
It’s the tolerance paradox. We can tolerate all except the intolerant.
Can you tolerate electoral reform?
The precedent shouldn’t be “they go low, we go high”, but “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”. He probably wouldn’t do anything because the aforementioned issue, but should just send an assassination squad on the 6 supreme court judges alongside with other politicians.
You’re actually being serious
You’re suggesting Biden sends a government hit squad to assasinate supreme court judges?
Are you high?
I mean, apparently he could now order a hit team to burst into Robert’s house at night, put a gun to his his head and say “Joe sends his completely legal regards” before leaving. Obviously killing them would be wrong but maybe it wouldnt be so bad to make them feel a bit of what they are unleashing, since conservatives often dont have empathy for things that dont happen to them or those close to them.
So…the hypothetical of trump using these new “standards” (for lack of a better word) that his judges set is justification for calling for the current president to beat him to the punch?
Do you know what would happen if Biden did that? Best case scenario, is he IMMEDIATELY loses the 2024 election, and trump then continues the practice with the justification of “he did it first!”. That’s the BEST possible outcome.
But it could go SOOOOOO much farther than that. It could honestly be the thing that starts the civil war 2 in this country before we even GET to the election. A government using it’s own resources to kill it’s own government officials. How is that not EXACTLY what russia does???
Why stop at supreme court judges? Why not kill trump? Why not kill every political opponent you face?
You tried to stop trump from introducing facism by saying it’s ok for Biden to introduce facism. Either way, this country falls to facism. You’re just debating which side is the new dictator.
Did you missread what i said or just choose to argue against what you wanted to read? I even included the words “obviously killing them would be wrong”, and its not like that was burried in dozens of lines nobody will read through.
I suggested showing the judge he could be targeted with his own ruling not killing him.
No you’re right we should wait until trump orders the assassinations of rival politicians next January when he very well could get elected.
I’ve given up on this crowd. You didn’t say do nothing.
This crowd only understands their echo chamber. Unless you are 100% in agreement with them then you must 100% be against them.
In another post I challenged them to give one specific thing Biden can/should do to fix this. They couldn’t even come up with one item.
I got one. Present a new bill that says supreme court judges are not for life with no chance to remove them.
Every 4 years on election years, but months before the presidential election, (so maybe spring/summer) they allow the general public to vote on their performance. If they get less than 65% approval rating, they’re out. They’ll be replaced by the new president, technically next year (since the election happens in November, but the inauguration is in January).
So if a court judge is less than 65% popular with the public, they’re gone.
And yes, I see the problem of “but the nation is so divided right now that neither side could get that approval rating, and all 12 judges would just be replaced every 4 years…”
Which is partially by design. We need a system that fundamentally breaks all systems that keep corrupt people in power, and actively discourages the media, and politicians from taking this “us vs them” mentality.
A republican SHOULD be presenting their set of ideas that benefit ALL Americans.
A democrat SHOULD be presenting a different set of opposing ideas that benefit ALL Americans.
And the public should vote on what will benefit them most. There should be no such thing as career democrats, or career republicans. It should be a free flowing liquid set of ideas that get catagorized as democrat this time, but based on the people in the election, maybe next time you’re catagorized as more republican than the other guy. So, this election you’re republican instead.
Because everybody is so concerned about “The other side”, that everybody forgets one key thing. It may be two sides, but they’re two sides to the same coin. That coin is America. Right now, and for the past 8 years, that coin has been just falling to the ground.
thank you for presenting at least a decent idea. the ideas of shoot trump is just stupid. yeah biden can’t be prosecuted for it but the person who shoots trump can be. it’s still against the law and would basically guarantee a civil war in this country.
while the bill is a good idea. would it actually pass? i mean think about it. right now the republicans own the court and will own it until the current batch dies. why would they vote for the bill? but on the face of it . it’s a good idea.
Unless you are 100% in agreement with them then you must 100% be against them.
I know what you mean. It’s pretty freaking sad. This isn’t facebook, where there’s an 80% chance I have horrid views if you think I might have them. Yet they behave like it’s facebook.
Or maybe your views are just wildly unpopular, that’s a possibility too.
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Yah, I mean you’d hate to have any introspection, easier to insult everyone else.
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In another post I challenged them to give one specific thing Biden can/should do to fix this. They couldn’t even come up with one item.
Nice to run into you again, still posting this tired line huh? And you’re lying, because not only did I provide specifics, so did multiple other people (there’s more than just these, I’ve seen a ton). It seems that you might be caught in some sort of personal echo chamber.
Is there a reason you stop responding to people once they provide specifics?
I kept checking and no one would give specifics. I gave up on the conversation. But I’ll go look
We know for a fact Trump will use this to abuse his power as much as possible. The high road isn’t sitting down and taking it, it’s using the power that was just handed to you to do something about it. There practically is no such thing as “illegal” now when it comes to the president. Biden doesn’t need to commit murder to make a difference. He could, for example, expand the Supreme Court so the conservatives no longer have the advantage, or cancel student debt to get more supporters, or do anything other than cry about it.
Nah, murder is the popular idea here so let’s do that
Look in the mirror, dawg
yup I’m totally saying let’s do nothing about this. You people are brilliant.
What should we do then? The default assumption is nothing, give us something to actually work with or the assumption is true.
Protest. We should flood the streets and not go to work.
Not murder. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know. I know, no one ever admits this online so it’s probably weird to read
The default assumption is nothing
That is on you
Republicans have spent the past 50 years screaming that guns exist to thwart a tyrannical government. Not that they bring tyranny to our doorstep, I’m not writing off the one thing they’ve admitted could stop them.
The current brand of right wing fascism taking over in this country will kill millions if left unchecked. I’m not encumbered by the trolley problem here, the people who want to bring fascism to America should die if that’s what it takes to stop them.
Calling for civil war is always good
I don’t intend to start it, I intend to finish it.
But they’re not illegal things according to the highest court in the nation. That’s the entire point.
That doesn’t matter. I understand that premise and yet it still doesn’t matter
If it was as unimportant as you think it is, it wouldn’t be getting ruled on by SCOTUS. It absolutely does matter, especially with groups like the right who continually challenge laws to find ways to loosen or completely negate them.
Never said it was unimportant
Right you said it “doesn’t matter” which is another way of saying that something is unimportant.
You’re wasting your time, Best Friend.
I will consider this harassment and report you if you do this again
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Lemmy is a rather small community by comparrison. I’m bound to run into you frequently.
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I don’t care what you do. It has no impact on me.
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If it truly bothered you, you would block me. It’s ridiculously easy.
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would you care to elaborate on what you believe should be done about this?
Given that I’m a programmer who hasn’t even had time to think about it I wouldn’t know.
Things that should not be done about it: murder. I can’t tell if the people suggesting that are all joking or not, but it’s sort of shocking if anyone is being serious.
No, I want him to call their bluff and rise to the challenge of meeting this constitutional crisis. The top court in the land has gone off the rails, and seemingly in collusion with a concerted effort to destroy the rule of law.
Blithely waiting until the election to “let the people defeat Trump” is dereliction. This ruling may be curated in deference for Trump, but unless it is challenged forcefully it will not just go away on January 7th 2024 if Trump loses again. Because when the question of “What are ‘official acts’ v ‘private acts’ then?” comes up, it’ll go right back to the
SCotUSthe Heritage Foundation and their interpretations.It’s a straw man to imply I said we should do “nothing”
Fucking lol,
This entire thread is people giving you answers that range from reasonable to nuanced, and you sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming about how the only options are murder or nothing.
I don’t get to pull this quote out very often, so please, feel honored.
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
The only thing I’ve refused to accept is murder. Lying about that doesn’t change it. Btw practically no one suggested anything, but everyone who did and said something besides murder seemed somewhat reasonable to me.
we should have standards. my standard for a fascist is that he should not exist.
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When the other guy is willing to knife you its no time to stick to the rules of debate.
Apparently “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” is now law.
Does this mean a president can make their tax filing an official act?
Turns out Nixon was right this whole time.
So again it’s now a matter of “what is allowed” vs “what is ethical or moral”…
We all joke about the high road of democratic vs gop approaches. But how much does the difference matter?
The hard part is we all get it, Biden is now technically allowed to do whatever. Is that a reason to immediately do the worst possible thing?
Should he now cast aside the law and commit hate crimes purely to prove a point?
The courts will never allow such a performative action, but they’ll allow the creep of fascism.
These people are proving that anarchy would never work. The second murder became “legal” they all jumped to suggest it.
Murder happens all of the time in Capitalist society, too, you know? Even though it’s ‘illegal’ and all that.
Anarchy does not mean no rules, it just means there is no state to enforce those rules. Communities can still enforce their own rules in Anarchist society, and one of those rules can be ‘don’t murder’.
I know what anarchy is. You’re assuming murder would be forbidden in every community, but if a lot of people in this thread started communities, (at least they themselves) would be allowed to murder. That was my point.
oh, look, it’s one of these again.
Yeah he should. Shock everyone. Show them how bad this ruling is. I’m sure there are impermanent ways to display this.
There are way worse thing biden could do withthis nearly unlimited power
And we’re still holding on to imagination.
He needs to act to safeguard our democracy, because others will not have the same hangups in doing the opposite. Acting with the power they have granted him in order to prevent future issues is not corruption.
Not illegal anymore bucko
The Judiciary has decided that the Executive must not be beholden to neither the Legislative nor the Judiciary. This is terrible, because it breaks the separation of powers. Now, if only the Executive wasn’t beholden to any of the other powers to force the Judiciary to go back to reason… Oh, wait.
Irony aside: no, this isn’t a matter of not having standards, this is a matter of making sure that democracy is capable of perpetuating itself. If the organism gets infected by a virus that intends to mutate the whole thing into a degenerated parody of itself, it must send its antibodies. Not doing so means letting the last line of defense fall all by itself, which is even against the very spirit of the law.
Sure. Why not? It’s not like the next R in office wont do exactly that anyway.
Because morality and norms exist whether those corrupt fucks care about them or not.
You can’t use norms and morality to defeat fascists
Murder it is then
Not for long they don’t
The problem is that action must be taken now or those norms could go away forever.
“Illegal” my left asshole.
How many assholes do you have?
Thirteen of them and they’re all well guarded. How many do you have??
Only 12
The only thing you’re interested in is showing how much of a bigger person you are on the internet. What we’re doing is speaking about all the ways this is fucked up and hypotheticals about how it can go wrong. For a lot of us, this isn’t new. I my political life time alone, I saw 8 years of rights being eroded by the Bush II administration with no real push back and once Obama got in under the promise of fixing things, a whole lot of inaction on rolling back any of the rights violations.
The powers that be are taking advantage of how distributed the responsibilities of government are. If it’s so easy to lose rights, why is it so hard to gain them back. There’s always someone else to point at for why that is the case. In Nazi Germany, that was called The Banality of Evil. I see that everyday when some injustice is hand waved away as being too ingrained to do anything about. Police Reform? Too hard. Effective Climate Action? It would hurt the economy. The SC is eroding our rights? Have to wait for someone to die or retired(lol).
No kings but us.
Words are wind.
Payback’s gon’ be a bitch. The pendulum will swing the opposite direction with much more force, me thinks.
Welp he’s just gonna wait till let trump be the first to use it. We are still cooked. 🤡🔫
I like how every single one of these comments are blaming Biden and the Democrats for a supreme court ruling that the conservatives and Republicans enacted. How about we put the blame on the people who are actually doing the terrible things?
This is why the Republicans keep winning btw, because they’re united.
That’s just not true. If you are a fascist and rich, you are a king. You can commit crimes in broad daylight and nothing can be done about it.
Then fucking do something about it Joe! The DNC has been little more than passive observers to the raise of fascism.
“The DNC” doesn’t do what you think it does.
It doesn’t do what it should.
The point of the party is supposed to be long-term strategy and putting the platform over any one person.
When people talk about what the DNC should be doing, it’s not some “gotchya” to point out that they’re not doing their job and leadership needs replaced.
It’s just proving their point
So because the National Committee’s short and long term strategy is not what you’d be doing, you think they’re not doing anything.
Do you do any local political organizing?
you think they’re not doing anything.
What’s their long term plan?
As far as I can tell, it’s only prevent progressives from taking control of the party.
For now, they’re planning on getting out voters for the general election, and recruiting volunteers along the way.
Most planning falls to state and local parties - which you can easily get involved in.
Why haven’t you?
So basically the only thing they care about is winning, not actually representing peoples values?
Theyre more than just an election committee, thats what the DCCC is for.
Of course they are in it for the money, what do you think?
For now,
Bruh…
Do you know what “long term planning” means?
If you don’t think they have one, say it.
Since we’re talking about a SCOTUS ruling, it would be on Congress to pass legislation.
And to follow up on @teodor_from_achewood@lemmy.world’s comment, the Democratic National Committee is a private party organization that supports Democratic candidates in elections. They have nothing to do with passing legislation.
This is an interpretation of the constitution, so what congress needs to do it to amend the constitution to explicitly state the president is not immune, and good luck getting that through
They can amend it or they can pass law citing a different part of the constitution or other judicial precedent, then if it gets challenged the Supreme Court would have to rule on the constitutionality of it’s latest legal justification.
Hopefully after we replace six justices.
They have nothing to do with passing legislation.
Get the fuck out of here.
No, Congress cannot pass legislation on this matter. The ruling says that the Constitution itself grants the President immunity, so it would take a Constitutional amendment to change it.
Constitutional amendment
No, Congress cannot pass legislation on this matter.
Sure they can. They can pass legislation that says “The President of the United States of America does not have criminal immunity from official acts taken as President.”
Once that’s done, a case would have to be identified and charged. The President would need to do something that would be considered a crime, and would be considered an official act, then be charged with that crime. Then it would follow its way through the legal process - district court, appeals court, en banc, eventually landing at the Supreme Court, who would decide whether that legislation was constitutional.
There are plenty of unconstitutional laws still on the books, especially at the state level, “atheists cannot hold public office” is a great example. Of course, those laws are “unenforceable” under normal circumstances; these are not normal circumstances. We’ve seen how the fascists abuse the legal system. It would not surprise me one bit for them to latch on to one of those “still on the books” unconstitutional laws and attempt to enforce it, because throwing wrenches into the machinery is the point.
Using the “atheists cannot hold public office” example, it would be elementary to cause harm to someone’s campaign for elected office just by seeking to enforce an unconstitutional law. Drawing attention to the lack of religious belief in a candidate, forcing said candidate to defend themselves, getting the unwashed masses to go “Yeah! That’s what the law says!” because they’re too fucking stupid to understand that other court rulings have nullified that law.
Yes, technically they could, but any suit under that law would be vulnerable to getting thrown out on summary judgement. Would you agree that it’s more accurate to say that Congress can’t fix the system by reverting to the old law?
Would you agree that it’s more accurate to say that Congress can’t fix the system by reverting to the old law?
I’m not sure what you mean by this, can you explain?
They can’t take us back to the way things were on June 30th, 2024, to make this ruling like it didn’t happen. It doesn’t have the power. The best the that Congress can do is pass an unconstitutional law that may, at some future date, through a highly-fraught process in the courts, reverse it.
That’s the “right” way, yes. I believe constitutional amendments also begin in Congress.
Still. The DNC has systems in place to decide who to back in elections to pass legislation. Their messaging since 2015 has been embarrassing. They keep courting moderate conservatives that don’t exist and ignoring unrepresented potential voters who do. They talk about how they win elections when there’s good turn out without ever analyzing which candidates encourage high turnout. Americans want to feel represented in politics and we don’t. The Democrats need to do something that would weaken the democrat party but would weaken the Republican party more: they need to actively begin dismantling the two party system. We want election reform. We want the police to not be a hostile force against the general populace. We want the society we live in to benefit everyone and not just the kinds of people who can afford to finance an election campaign.
The polling exists. We all know that neither party represents or enacts what the people want do. The Democrats refuse to look around and see what’s happening, preferring to rearrange the deck chairs as the ship sinks because that’s the only thing they know to do. And you know? I can’t really blame them. We the people have also been rearranging the deck chairs. We live in a country that only benefits the top but we all still show up to do our duties without looking at what’s going on in other countries where the people are standing up to their authoritarian oppressors.
The worst part is the fascists know what they’re doing. They know to decay the structure by raising the temperature because we’ve become too complacent. We need to stand up to fascism in a way that we haven’t ever since McArthyism.
The DNC has systems in place to decide who to back in elections to pass legislation.
No it does not.
Ugh. Stop. Talking. You Fucking. Knob.
Jesus Christ, someone might believe you so talk less. Please.
Please.
EDIT: PLEASE
Nah.
You all will whine and whine and whine but will never do the most basic political organizing.
Then what the fuck is a primary and how do they decide to back in a primary and what the fuck is a super delegate?
What primary?
Bernie lost because he didn’t get enough votes.
Ya but was there a thumb on the scale to push people one way?
No
Sure. And I voted for warren. My point isn’t “The DNC needs to get their heads out of their asses and make Bernie their nominee” my point is “The DNC needs to get their heads our of their asses and realize their current overall strategy is a losing one”
It’s on Biden to personally demonstrate to SCOTUS just how dangerous the ruling was.
By calling for drone strikes on SCOTUS, yes.
I deeply disagree with this take. If we actually care about the Constitution and upholding what it stands for, then we have to work to undo the damage caused by this race to the bottom, not participate in it.
Good luck with that. You can “disagree” all the way to the concentration camp.
You know what would be a fantastic way to spur forward legislation and law stopping the president from doing anything bonkers?
Having the president do something bonkers that the evil assholes who are setting the field to make Trump a king, have no choice but to stop.
I like this idea. Republicans are desperate to prosecute the “Biden crime family” but can’t go after him because of this ruling. So Biden just has to do a bunch of illegal but non-violent stuff - like openly soliciting bribes - and Republicans would be forced to pass a law.
For that law to be valid, it can’t be targeted at one person - called “bill of attainder” - it would apply to all presidents going forward regardless of who’s elected.
Hoist them by their own petard.
Some might call them enablers at this point.
