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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

#491

Post by pvg »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #341
grotorea wrote: post #268

It's interesting that even in the Roman Republic the immunity ended after the end of your term, and you could be prosecuted for official acts taken during it. And even let to Caesar fighting to keep himself in office at all times to avoid inevitable prosecution. https://theconversation.com/from-caesar-to-trump-immunity-is...

Awfully bold of you to assume we are better governed than Rome - back when ther was still such a thing as honor.

Stabbing your political rivals, marching armies at one’s own capital, etc are definitely considered less honourable in these fallen times.

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

#492

Post by dingnuts »

janalsncm wrote: post #402
mpalmer wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fails to acknowledge that today's decision has a weak/non-existent constitutional basis. I defy anyone to craft any political system or subset thereof that correctly anticipates societal shifts over the course of two and a half centuries.

You don’t need to anticipate societal shifts, you need to empower the political system to handle them. As for the longevity of the U.S., there’s a strong argument that it has in fact not lasted 250 or so years, and that the reconstruction era amendments created a qualitatively different, more centralized country. But even if we ignore that, the U.S. has a lot going for it that has nothing to do with politics. Two oce…

Europe's lifestyle is subsidized heavily by the American defense industry and they had better buckle in if Trump wins and starts more seriously winding down America's defense commitments there

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

#493

Post by nickburns »

leotravis10 wrote: post #482
nickburns wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what a dramatic take. surely you haven't read the actual opinion. for posterity, this is "the blueprint for a [sic] American dictatorship" to which you refer: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

I'm just going to leave this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40848935

i'm a little busy cutting through the actual opinion at the moment. maaaybe i'll get to this Vox journalist's own interpretation of it when i'm done. no breath should be held though.

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

#494

Post by standardUser »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #490
vlovich123 wrote: post #464

I think the saddest thing is how lying under oath during a Senate confirmation hearing doesn’t revoke the confirmation. Basically Kavanaugh did what everyone said he would and he overturned US v Nixon even though he lied about it during his confirmation even though before he argued repeatedly it was a bad decision. So either he lied or he miraculously changed his beliefs for the duration of the Senate hearing. https:…

I think the saddest thing is that judges are expected to answer how they would rule on specific cases to be confirmed. What is even the point of an independent supreme court, if politicians can have guarantees as to how specific cases are decided?

Kavanaugh was not forced to lie under oath, he chose to.

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

#495

Post by agensaequivocum »

siliconc0w wrote: post #312

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 fo…

Federal law defines "machine gun", a bump stock clearly doesn't meet it.

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

#496

Post by openasocket »

ClarityJones wrote: post #470
openasocket wrote: post #467

Frankly, this is terrifying. The decision gives complete criminal immunity from any "official acts" as President. It goes on to define that term so broadly as to include any conversation with Justice department officials. Under a plain reading, a President is more than welcome to instruct the Justice department to investigate or charge anyone, or to not investigate certain crimes, and that is completely permissible.…

> Under a plain reading, a President is more than welcome to instruct the Justice department to investigate or charge anyone, or to not investigate certain crimes, and that is completely permissible. I think we have fundamentally different views of the Executive's role. We have 3 branches of government, and the President is the guy who enforces the law. The Justice department is not a 4th branch of government.

The Executive branch does have the authority to enforce laws, but that authority is not absolute. The President cannot go to the Justice department and say "hey, that guy who committed murder, don't prosecute him, because he promised to pay me a lot of money if I let him off". The President cannot go to the Justice department and say "stop investigating me and my political allies or I'll fire you". That second one is what led to Nixon having to resign.

At least, that's what I think should be the case. The majority in this case disagree. They seem to think that any usage of the powers of President is free from any criminal liability.

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

#497

Post by [deleted] »

vlovich123 wrote: post #464

I think the saddest thing is how lying under oath during a Senate confirmation hearing doesn’t revoke the confirmation. Basically Kavanaugh did what everyone said he would and he overturned US v Nixon even though he lied about it during his confirmation even though before he argued repeatedly it was a bad decision. So either he lied or he miraculously changed his beliefs for the duration of the Senate hearing. https:…

[deleted]

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

#498

Post by bigstrat2003 »

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

As it should be. If someone is going to make a broad claim about an entire political party - be that Republicans or Democrats - they need to show the evidence. You don't get to make sweeping negative statements about large chunks of the country without backing it up.

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

#499

Post by nataliste »

riskable wrote: post #389
qqtt wrote: post #317

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 constitutional…

> The President is ultimately largely beholden to Congress. The government cannot sink into a dictatorship without the explicit approval of the majority of Congress. This is nonsense. The President can just assassinate all of their political rivals in Congress that would hold them to account. Before this ruling there was an assumption that any such actions would be prosecuted after the President was no longer in offi…

If president has gone rogue and is assassinating members of congress (or rival candidates, why would they need legal immunity? Assassinating opponents is already the action of someone that refuses to relinquish office and has de facto immunity. They don't need the validation of the Supreme Court to do this; nobody is going to charge them in the case that it'll bring a death sentence.

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

#500

Post by skhunted »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #490
vlovich123 wrote: post #464

I think the saddest thing is how lying under oath during a Senate confirmation hearing doesn’t revoke the confirmation. Basically Kavanaugh did what everyone said he would and he overturned US v Nixon even though he lied about it during his confirmation even though before he argued repeatedly it was a bad decision. So either he lied or he miraculously changed his beliefs for the duration of the Senate hearing. https:…

I think the saddest thing is that judges are expected to answer how they would rule on specific cases to be confirmed. What is even the point of an independent supreme court, if politicians can have guarantees as to how specific cases are decided?

I think the saddest thing is that judges are expected to answer how they would rule on specific cases to be confirmed.

That’s the sad part? We have different perceptions reality.

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