Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.
So like, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I’ve been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.
The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.
I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?
No dude, it’s only the most talked about things right now.
No it doesn’t concern me. I have no illusions that the top of society is full of people with unfair power over me. And it’s relieving that the law finally reflects the reality of the situation.
The only thing worse than a nightmare is a nightmare with lipstick on.
Ive allways wondered the point of putting presedents like this into writing, I beleave the reason is to ligitimize it. From “we can do evil but our court trial will look like Trump’s trial, and thats a headache and a risk”. Now it is “ligitimate” to break the law and a “just action done for the good of our nation”.
It’s a good question. I suppose it might open the door for more of it, but I don’t really see this as “the moment it became true the POTUS could get away with murder”.
Like, a year or so ago there was a story about finding cocaine in the white house. People were like “Aren’t you shocked?” and my response was “not in the least”.
Dude, this is straight terrifying.
I feel like if Trump wins the election, my trans ass is going to end up in a concentration camp. Kinda hope I die before that happens.
This is intentional to make the US dictatorship ready. What do you think will happen if Trump gets elected?
Yes. Be concerned. Be very concerned.
Enjoy your King, fellow subjects.
I’m pissed that Biden isn’t calling their bluff and breaking a ton of laws right now.
Yes, have you browsed Lemmy or the general internet the past few days??? How can you still be asking “is anyone else” at this point?
Pretty sure we all are at least a little ticked off about it. Except for maybe all the fat oranges magats out there
The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences.
This isn’t true.
They ruled that the President has criminal immunity for official acts in line with the constitutional rights and duties of the POTUS.
They also ruled that non-official acts, or acts taken in a personal capacity as a private citizen, are not immune to criminal prosecution, and that there’s a large gray area in between the two where it needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
I am not important enough to be targeted but privileged enough to be noticed if I was disappeared.
Can’t Biden just have a reaper drone fire a hellfire missile at Trump? Or am I missing something?
It is extremely concerning. We no longer have three separate branches of government acting as a system of checks and balances.
Especially with Project 2025 (day one after the election of the next GOP candidate). The executive branch will no longer be controllable by the other two branches. Also, Schedule F will allow all “policy-related” government workers to be rescheduled as fireable employees, allowing the Prez to install loyalists throughout the entire government. It’s definitely time to freak the fuck out.
Anyone who wants to see it https://www.project2025.org/
If you read the PDF that they gave it’s terrifying. Talking about applying to be a Loyalist and only they get federal appointments…and replacing real people in the government.
Let’s pretend to be loyalists and seed their administration with leftists from lemmy.
They have an interview process that combs over, not sure actually…
We know how good they are at combing-over.
Textbook step by step fascism.
The Republican party is engaged in another coup
This isn’t a Democrat vs Republican issue. Obama drone strike killed an American without due process. This is an authoritarian vs libertarian issue.
Stop it. Now is not the time. You’re intentionally failing to recognize that we are, in a very real and imminent sense, staring the possible collapse of democracy in the US in the face.
This is absolutely a GOP issue. They’re the ones doing all of this and also the only ones pushing to go further. The example you used isn’t even close to the same league as what’s being discussed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki
Was it fucked up the kid got killed by a CIA-ordered air strike? Absolutely. But it’s not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be and is a far cry different than what is now possible for a US president to do based on the SCOTUS ruling last week.
That’s my point. If it isn’t good when this power is available to the president if you don’t like then (or anyone in government for that matter) then they shouldn’t have that power. This is absolutely about removing power from the authorities.
But Biden could open a can of whoop-ass right now if he wanted to.
Possibly. The SCOTUS ruling essentially kicked it down to lower courts to decide what’s an official act or not. Trump installed a ton of judges across the country to various federal courts. It could easily backfire on Biden if he tried anything.
Who cares? Let ‘em all have it! They certainly don’t care.
Your first sentence was right. This ISN’T democrat vs republican issue.
But the rest of your message is straight hot garbage.
This is a “united states as it always has operated, republican or democrat, or other parties that existed in the past” vs “united states becoming facist” issue.
Ah yes, totally comparable to a president assassinating his political rival on US soil. Great comment!
Political rival doesn’t mean anything. This ruling means any president will get away with it and we’ll likely need a constitutional amendment to fix. Hopefully ending qualified immunity would eliminate it.
Any president can get away with it, but only one party’s candidates will actually do it.
The party that put these fascist judges on the bench will do it, in case that wasn’t obvious.
If you think it’s the Democrats that’ll fix it, I have a bridge to sell you.
Nah man, this is very concerning. You don’t need to calm down; I think everyone else is too fuckin calm about it.
What I want from anyone supporting this decision is a single example of a situation where the President would need to break the law in an official capacity. I want just one. I’ll not get it, but I’m gonna keep demanding it.
The king of Sweden has a similar exemption from the law, but he also doesn’t hold any political power. I also don’t know how waterproof his status is if he did something heinous enough.
Trump already has done heinous stuff.
Trump has already been convicted of felonies.
But SCOTUS just made a ruling which states that some of the evidence used to convict him is inadmissible.
Just because he made those comments while in office. Because somehow lying about paying off porn stars to win a second term is protecting the American people and thus part of his official duties. Go figure.
US justice system is f*cked.
Boggles the mind how one can be a convicted felon and still be in the race, but if you’re in prison you can’t vote.
I think prisoners and excons should be able to vote. But it’s definitely important to have people be able to run from prison. See Eugene Debs, Nelson Mandela, and others.
This is a fair point I hadn’t considered!
The king of Sweden doesn’t control the most powerful military in the world.
He doesn’t control much of anything, actually!
Yup! There’s also the fact that kings usually tend to at least care about their country’s welfare somewhat. Republicans don’t give a shit about anything but money, power, and theocracy.
Capitalists. Capitalists are bipartisan, and that’s why Biden is doing this big nothing.
Theocracy is a mean to money and power.
True, but there are true believers in there that actually believe Jesus is coming back and such.
I suppose some do, sometimes I wish they were right and that they would j just get raptured already. No need for a new Kingdom and tons of massacre, just come and take them.
a single example of a situation where the President would need to break the law in an official capacity.
I definitely don’t support the ruling but Obama has ordered drone strikes that killed children. Does that mean Obama should stand trial for murder? I think the idea is that the president is given the authority to do things most people can’t, and because of that, they can’t be held to the same standard as other people, at least while using that authority.
There really aught to be a line though. There can’t be blanket Immunity on every single presidental act no matter what. Ordering the assassination of the al-Qaeda leader and ordering the assassination of the Democrat leader should not be considered equal actions under the law. Trump is already arguing that his conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results was an official action of the president. There’s no way that should be considered valid.
What laws of our land were broken? Which statute? Has Obama been charged with anything and if so what? Because he didn’t have immunity from criminal prosecution, remember, so if this is your example you’re going to need to show that a former president a) had to break the law, b) couldn’t have accomplished the thing with existing powers, and c) faced criminal prosecution for that “official act” when they shouldn’t have, as a result of not having this immunity.
And this is my point exactly. Obama hasn’t been prosecuted for those drone strikes, nor for the operation that killed Bin Laden; and he won’t be, because those acts did not break United States law. When the President needs to do something most people can’t, they use powers imparted under existing law - the president already has quite a lot of power, you know. In the few cases the President has needed more than that, they’ve had to go justify it and get the other branches on board, at least nominally (looking at you, Bush Jr, and sending the Guard to the middle east to get around needing Congress to send the regular Army ಠ_ಠ). This is the way the system was designed, with checks and balances on each branch.
Long story short I’m sorry to say I find your example lacking and my challenge remains unmet. I very much appreciate you engaging in good faith though, so thanks!
What about if the president wants to be a naughty boy, but doesn’t want any of those pesky consequences?
I’d say Biden doing something official to null and void this decision would be good. He won’t, obviously, but it’s an example.
I’ve seen dozens of people, including myself, wondering why there’s no one in the streets over this, it’s a long weekend for a lot of people too.
Honestly, DC is a 10 hour drive for me. If I didn’t think I’d be the lone idiot protesting I’d be on my way because I’m off until Monday.
But there’s safety in numbers. One person in the street will get arrested and end up as a footnote in the local papers, a million people might make them notice.You underestimate current military weapons. Clusterbombs from drones would could kill hundreds of thousands of packed civilians. And don’t think a Dictator wouldn’t use them to stay in power.
They are not in the streets because they are endless scrolling on their phones.
I’ve had plenty of days where i wondered of it was worth my kids living without me to live without him.
Every fucking day
I think about this all the time: people commit suicide by gun every day. So they want to die and they have a gun. Even if 99% of them are too depressed to do anything but die, I really think there should have been several attempts on Trump by now. I mean, hit or miss, shoot yourself like you were going to anyway right?
I’m not advocating murder or suicide. I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened.
The fact that rational people might decide that stochastic terrorism is the most logical choice on both sides should terrify the FBI and Secret Service. Imagine standing in the middle of that?
I’m shocked there haven’t been attempts!
I think it epitomizes our cultural complacency nowadays. It’s the same reason why we don’t have mass protests right now. People are too comfortable to give a fuck. Assassins are the seven sigma outliers of the distribution but the whole distribution has shifted so far to the complacent side that we just don’t have any anymore.
It’ll take something personally affecting too many people, like relatives being shipped of the internment camps, or to for-profit prisons for being homeless, or gay, or debt, or being to mouthy…
