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Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

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Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#311

Post by o11c »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #95
alsaaro wrote: post #46

Curious how an ostensibly "conservative" court can ignore the concept of enumerated powers, the constitution clearly does not grant immunity to the President, so the conservative court invents immunity when none is explicitly granted. Indeed, the concept of immunity is recognized in the American constitution for legislators in a limited way, so this isn't an oversight by the framers corrected by Robert's conservative…

> Curious how an ostensibly "conservative" court can ignore the concept of enumerated powers, the constitution clearly does not grant immunity to the President, so the conservative court invents immunity when none is explicitly granted. Roberts' opinion covers this, as do many discussions of textualist interpretations -- not being set out in the text specifically doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, for textualist int…

That's not really a coherent stance though, given how many "protect the constitution" laws they keep overturning in the name of "it's not actually written in the constitution".

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#312

Post by siliconc0w »

This court has blown up civil rights, legalized machine guns (bump stocks), blown up any ability to regulate with chevron and now elevates the president to king in order to give the president that appointed them immunity. How long before sotomayor rage quits. I guess this ruling means Biden can send some thugs to forcibly retire them? Let's just have a fully political court that flip flops what the laws mean every four years.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#313

Post by code_biologist »

janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

I mean, they were pretty good. The founding documents addressed many problems that been seen in British political history. I think they may have lacked tools to prevent two party rule, but some were aware it would be a problem.

From George Washington's presidential farewell address: "However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#314

Post by mindslight »

spencerflem wrote: post #280
mindslight wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not conservative . They are radical reactionaries, to use the word that Moldbug himself coined. Essentially Republicans got tired of things changing despite their conservatism, got angry, and now it's not enough to slow change - they want to rewind us to the values of the 1980's or even the 1950's. This perspective is why they refer to any post-y2k mainstream social values as "activism". The Democrats…

This was downvoted at the time of this comment. Shame on the Republicans in this thread that I have my fellow programmers to blame for the fall of american democracy

It's like nobody can take criticism these days, probably because they're overwhelmed by the amount they see.

I went back and forth whether to include a paragraph about how this swapping also explains the dynamics around things like DEI training, but decided against it so I wouldn't be getting it from both sides. Things were more pleasant when most people got this energy out watching football.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#315

Post by margalabargala »

Exoristos wrote: post #157
margalabargala wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The President shouldn't have the legal authority to conduct any drone strikes without a declaration of war from Congress. We've been ignoring the Constitution for a very long time. What part of the Constitution are we ignoring? According to the Constitution, the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The Constitution does not say that war must be declared for the armed forces to operate. Thus, ord…

The Constitution forbade the US even to have a standing army. A standing navy was instituted, however.

The Constitution does not forbid a standing army, it merely mandates that funding be renewed every two years. This is functionally a standing army.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#316

Post by impalallama »

w10-1 wrote: post #150

The essence, from the majority opinion https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf > nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. > And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. > Testimony or private records of the Pres…

> Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial

Wouldn’t this have made it impossible to prosecute Nixon for Watergate?

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#317

Post by qqtt »

It's really impossible to understand and determine before hand how the court would rule on any of these theoretical cases that may result as a consequence of this decision. It is up to further cases to actually establish was constitutes "official" versus "unofficial" capacities as President and we can absolutely not guess before hand what that entails. From the decision, it seems that only those duties constitutionally mandated would fall under the "official" capacity, with quite a lot of leeway for determining how to evaluate individual actions.

Also I think we should all be reminded that there is separation of powers for a reason. The President is ultimately largely beholden to Congress. The government cannot sink into a dictatorship without the explicit approval of the majority of Congress. It is Congress' duty to remove Presidents from office that it feels are a danger to the country.

All these checks and balances still exist and will still be enforced. The President can not unilaterally go off the rails as many of these extreme hypotheticals seem to be implying.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#318

Post by nostromo »

lolinder wrote: post #179
treeFall wrote: post #98

>The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. I would consider this an extreme knee jerk take, but it's Sotomayor saying it. https://x.com/mikedebonis/status/180…

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

It's worth considering the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, that was killed by Obama outside of a combat zone. (I'm avoiding the word "assassinated" because it seems overly charged.)

In theory, some prosector could have decided to charge Obama with a crime, and maybe even achieved a conviction in a jurisdiction where he's unpopular.

This decision says that shouldn't happen because it was an official act as president.

Of course, if congress doesn't like something a president is doing, they can change the laws and remove his or her legal authority to do something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#319

Post by jimbob45 »

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm dismayed by this ruling but I'm curious: can someone defend it? I'm able to understand the counter-perspectives to my own on many hot-button issues (2nd amendment, abortion bans) but this one seems very nakedly bad. But maybe I'm just not seeing the counterpoint?

Impeachment is the intended vehicle for presidential punishment.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#320

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

whatever1 wrote: post #160

I understand why during their presidency the president needs to be immune (so that they can focus on their executive duties instead of spending their day in the court). But AFTER the end of their (last) term why not be held accountable for their actions?

[dead]
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