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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 20th, 2023

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  • Look, Judge Cannon says you raise some good points too. We’ll need some time for written briefs from each side. Due three months from now. Then we’ll need time for written responses, at least another month. We’ll schedule a few days of hearings to really hash through those details. And then she promises to think about it real hard, imply she’ll dismiss the case immediately once the trial begins, but make no actual official ruling yet, that would be premature. Then we have this backlog of other issues to work through of course even though we never actually decided anything yet on this issue. What, you suggest we address these issues in parellel? How dare you speak to a judge in this way, you are being inappropriate!! These issues that have been ruled on many times in the past by other courts as a routine matter are totally novel and demand years of study before a trial can begin!

    Etc etc etc

    If he doesn’t win the election and just fire half the justice department next January, she may just push the trial date so far Trump dies of natural causes before it even happens.


  • I thought he was a little bit of a piece of shit. I was surprised to find out he’s a facist who doesn’t believe in the rule of law though. Not surprised at all about Alito and Thomas though. Or Thomas making a concurrence to explicitly try and help give Trump even more ammo. I guess both literally and figuratively if he gets back in office.


  • Exactly, that’s what’s so scary about this. The courts now explicitly can’t consider things like motive to determine any of this. Just the action in a general sense. And since of course restricting the ability of a president to speak publicly to supporters in the general sense could infringe on the power of the executive, immune.

    And even if by some miracle some act was declared unofficial, he could either pardon the person or himself (automatically an official act), or fire the prosecutors bringing the case (automatically an official act). Or in the extreme case, order an assassination (automatically official act). Those core powers in article 2 mean even when the president uses some power not described in article 2, even when a court overcomes the extremely high hurdle placed to declare something not an official act and without immunity, it will still all be for naught. There’s effectively no limits.

    Trump has already said he wants to pardon the January 6rh rioters/coup participants. Immune.


  • If anything it seems like the media hasn’t grasped just how bad this is. Too focused on plastering the front page every day with more anonymous source opinions on if Biden is going to stay in the race or not. The whole official vs unofficial acts thing just has tricked people to believing there’s some discretion or something. There’s not. If it’s a power listed in the constitution, like the military or pardons, the president can legally do whatever they want with that power for any reason. And the unofficial vs official acts determination explicitly doesn’t allow consideration of motives or results. So talking to justice department employees is official? Alright, then talking with justice department employees to coordinate a bribe or a coup means immunity. As long as the president is using functions of government to commit crimes basically, they’re golden.


  • Okay I’m not saying she’s the best choice, wouldn’t be my preferred choice, but also this is a poll run by the Daily Mail. I can’t even find any pollster reputation ratings for them. I also can’t find any of their methodologies published online, which is also sketchy. And knowing what we all do about the Daily Mail anyways, this should all be taken with a massive truckload of salt.

    Edit: Ah found it, it was run by J.L partners, ranked 145 on five thirty eight pollster rankings for reliability (1.6/3 stars for reliability with a transparency score of 4.2/10). And again, without the methodology being published who knows. The pollster themself, James Johnson, is also a former senior advisor to Theresa May and the UK conservative party.


  • As long as the Dems have less than 60 votes in the Senate, and aren’t willing to ditch the fucking filibuster, there’s literally nothing they can do.

    *and even the number of democrats minus 50 don’t want to. So even one (plus Harris helping) in the first two years of the term or even two (if Harris helps again) in the second two years of the past term. It’s not like all democrats are unified about the filibuster, most voted to bypass it. You need either more than 60 dems total, or more than 50 dems that support bypassing the filibuster.

    Or you know, even a single republican that doesn’t want to be a facist helping to transition the country to authoritarian rule. But that seems less likely unfortunately.






  • The majority are the ones who said that any use of constitutional presidential powers creates absolute immunity. All the dissenters are doing is pointing out the obvious implications and saying why the majority is wrong to create that immunity more eloquently than I can. You are the one who is confused. Or more likely, just arguing in bad faith. But just in case,

    It’s on the very first page of the majority ruling, here you go:

    Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the 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. There is no immunity for unofficial acts

    Seperately from the absolute immunity, any powers not delegated in the constitution (official acts they call it), have presumptive immunity. Uses of specifically delegated constitutional powers, like the military, have absolute immunity. If its an ability delegated to him in the constitution, the majority ruling says that cannot be questioned. They say neither by themselves or congressional laws. Only use of powers not delegated in the constitution can the court even begin to question if it was an “official act.”

    The majority says something along the lines of “oh this is just a little immunity we didn’t give turmp everything he asked for.” I have no idea why they can write that with a straight face. Besides the fact that giving any criminal immunity to the president is totally antithetical to the founding principles of our country, they in fact have given him everything he asked for. Trump himself was arguing if he was impeached for something then he should be able to be criminally liable still. But now thanks to the supreme court conservative justices, for the vast majority of the scariest things a president can do, like the command the military, pardon powers, and appointing and firing of officials, he couldn’t be held criminally liable even if he was impeached. It was more than Trump asked for. They may have even managed to torpedo both of his state criminal cases.

    The Supreme Court majority is just so worried that poor president’s will get harassed by prosecutors afterwards? Good! He should be afraid of breaking the law, just like everyone else. And if that can be proven in a court of law, he should go to jail, just like everyone else. The supreme court has now elevated the president above the rule of law and abdicated the responsibilities of the judiciary branch.


  • Under this ruling the president has absolute immunity for their use of any powers granted by the constitution, and that includes use of the military, pardon powers, and appointing and firing of executive department officials. Their motivations and purposes for use of those powers cannot be questioned by the courts or by any laws passed by congress.

    The whole “official” vs “non official” acts things only comes into play for powers not explicitly granted by the constitution. And even then the president gets presumptive immunity.

    Go read the actual ruling and the dissents and stop spreading misinformation. The journalist and the headline are accurate.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf




  • A prosecutor can argue that such an egregious order falls well outside the scope of the office, and constitutes an “unofficial act”.

    Incorrect, according to this ruling, his use of the military has absolute immunity. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing with it, they can’t even question if it’s an official act or not. That only factors in when using powers not delegated in the constitution. You do point out some more absurdities in the majority’s ruling though, theoretically a court could hold troops accountable for unlawful orders but could not hold the executive accountable for giving them. Moot point though, who’s bringing the charges against the troops in this situation? President has absolute criminal immunity for hiring and firing, just fire any prosecutors whether that’s justice department or military justice if they try to do so.

    The president does not have the power to order Seal Team 6 to violate the Posse Comitatus act.

    Null and void, they specifically state that not only the court doesn’t have the power to question, neither does congress. The supreme court just made posse comitatus toilet paper.

    The only way out for this mess is replacing the justices or a constitutional ammendment that’s says, yes we still have the rule of law for everyone, including the president.

    And yes I read the whole thing. And if the majority can’t see what they have enabled they’re stupid. But I don’t think it’s stupidity, they’re smart people. That only leaves malice. Or some very different political ideals than I hold about the rule of law at least.



  • Use of the military is delegated to him under article 2, his use of that power cannot be questioned. The ruling says what you just described cannot happen. He has absolute immunity for anything he uses that power for. Appointing or firing officials? Article 2, cannot be questioned. Granting pardons? Article 2, cannot be questioned, doesn’t matter why he did it.

    Only if the president is using some ability or power not specifically delegated in the constitution can a judge even began to decide if it counts as an official act. And then if that does, not quite as good as absolute immunity, but still presumptive immunity.

    And it gets even worse! Anything the president did as an “official act” cannot be used against him in court as evidence. So much of the evidence in all the cases he has can no longer be used! If any of the charges survive at all in the first place given this ridiculously broad immunity ruling. This ruling is so bad it may even help him get out his state charges unexpectedly. There’s a slim chance some of the charges may live on, but the funny thing about the ruling is it gives even more criminal immunity to some the scariest things the president has the power to do.

    If this ruling is terrible for Trump, why does the dissent start out by saying this gives everything Trump asked for and more?!

    I’m sorry, but you’re just incorrect. Please just read the dissents from the actual constitutional scholars in the ruling though instead of my dumb internet comments trying to summarize. They explain it all much better and more thoroughly.

    The first dissent starts on page 68 of the document I linked, and with the very large margins is a surprisingly quick read.