On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
Fuck the Biden campaign, that should be their whole platform now. But instead they use it to threaten us.
Edit: still, im voting for him…
That edit is the whole problem democrats don’t have any consequences for being shitty. If this election is so important than fucking do something popular Jesus Christ.
Edit: still, im voting for him…
That edit is the whole problem democrats don’t have any consequences for being shitty.
yeah! Let’s just not vote at all and hand trump and the federalist society the election!
If this election is so important than fucking do something popular Jesus Christ.
Biden has done a FUCK TON of stuff for the average american, especially in the face of the do-nothing MAGA congress. You’re mad because Biden isn’t immediately whipping his dick out to fuck over the supreme court with the insane amount of power they just handed him? Grow the fuck up, jesus christ. The LAST thing we need are knee-jerk emotional reactions instead of calculated tactics.
I don’t immediately disagree with this. Reactionary decisions breed instability and progress requires a foundation. Though with the Nation’s already flawed fundaments being actively bulldozed I am compelled to ask: what calculated tactics may we reasonably trust are in play?
Biden has played politics well enough. I’ll grant that. Especially while navigating the obscenely successful obstructionist Republican strategies which strangle the Legislature. The fact he’s accomplished anything of note in this climate could reasonably be spun as impressive.
Is the bar for America’s “left-wing” set so low, and the expectation they’ll cow to corporate interest so common (and rightly so), that this spin, these accomplishments, are honestly lauded as the laurels on which the Biden administration may ride to a second term? Forgiving student debt. Ensuring fairer access to home loans. Expanding healthcare coverage for veterans. All good things! No doubt. Is it fair to expect the American people to think this is enough? While higher education, homes, and healthcare become increasingly inaccessible?
Addressing symptoms in this way placates the agitated while maintaining the status quo and setting precedent to, ostensibly, address root cause at a later time. It assumes that the wheel of progress turns slowly. That progress will win out if it is patient and persistent and noble.
The past twelve years have proven this is not so.
The religious right-wing has worked diligently over the last ~70 years to create the current theocratic zeitgeist on which the MAGA parasite is parading to victory. It is not a sudden and surprising uncoordinated incidental movement preying on the Bible belt’s misguided moral anxieties. Haphazardly funneling the reactionary rhetoric of today into a Four Years Hate to seize power and further the ideology of Paul Weyrich. No. It is a dedicated effort. A calculated tactic. Others are replicating it and fascism is on the rise world 'round.
Successful opposition to the oligarchy-backed, well organized, long-planned, and now popular out and proud American fascist hate campaign will not be found in treating symptoms or placating concerned citizens or maintaining the status quo. What, then, is the Progressive answer? What tactic is the Biden Administration, or the Democratic Party, or anyone anywhere deploying that we should “grow the fuck up” and wait to see the impact of? Why should I, or any concerned citizen, trust that this is so?
Let’s be clear about what this is,
this is the executive branch refusing to put checks on a clearly corrupt and dysfunctional judicial branch. The stability of our 3 branch system depends on the branches being willing and able to check each other. If one branch yields to another, the system fails.
I mean, having an unelected group with lifetime appointments with ultimate power was kind of destined to fuck us at some point.
Biden once again bringing a deck of cards to a gunfight because responding effectively and proportionally in a situation that desperatetly calls for it wOuLd bE DiVisiVE.
THIS position is a justification for calling for him to step down from the candidacy, because refusing to even consider reforming - let alone packing (or, dare I say, the newly-revealed presidentially-legal-if-“official” extralegal and violent unpacking) the Supreme Court is very obviously going to lead to the long term failure of not only the Democratic Party, but democracy in this country in general.
Biden isn’t a fascist and neither are the people he appointed. Even if he gave an illegal order, it wouldn’t be followed because his administration isn’t stocked with incompetent lackies chosen for their loyalty alone.
Gaza protests: US officials who have quit over Biden’s support of Israel
Stacy Gilbert, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, left in late May. She said she resigned over an administration report to Congress that she said falsely stated Israel was not blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Alexander Smith, a contractor for USAID, quit in late May, alleging censorship after the U.S. foreign aid agency canceled publication of his presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. The agency said it had not gone through proper review and approval.
Looks like everyone that doesn’t get in line with Blue MAGA is getting the boot to me.
So you’ve found examples of folks moving on… while ignoring who they are…. Call things “blue maga” but that’s your label. You are “blue maga”… you make this shit up.
Folks being censored by the Biden administration and the entire administration falling in line to intentionally lie, censor and support Genocide you mean?
People here are really jumping to ignore the Genocide part.
I’m so censored! So genocide! So what do you mean? Supporting genocide is just a by-product of language? Genocide is what we do? Do you understand the word or are you just desperate to repeat it? The Biden administration has FORCED me so much… so who can say?
Stop apologizing for Genocide
You don’t get to claim Biden is on a moral high ground for not doing something while he has literally done that thing to support Genocide.
Wouldn’t the correct move be to immediately prove why such a ruling is asinine? Use official powers to reform the court, new court removes dangerous ruling asap, guard rail repaired.
Because the president doesn’t have official powers to reform the court
I don’t know exactly what the limits of his powers are, but at the most extreme couldn’t he blockade the homes of the conservative justices, preventing them from fulfilling their duties? If any official act is immune, why not go all the way? I guess it could get him impeached, which probably wouldn’t be great for November, but it feels like something has got to give at this point, these rulings have been beyond the pale.
The understanding of what is and isn’t an official act is severely lacking. An official act is within the duties of the president. The president can’t break the law and claim it was an official duty, lol.
Here’s an actual lawyer doing analysis of the dissent from an actual justice. Maybe you should watch it and learn what the decision actually says about official acts
I read the decision. The dissent is so ludicrous no one takes it seriously. I’ve seen several discussions of lawyers breaking the decision down. The only part of the dissent that makes sense is Amy Conny Barrett’s examples.
It’s astonishing that a man of his age is still flexible enough to stick his head up his own ass. He still thinks he can work with conservatives, doesn’t he?
When it comes to politics there is one golden rule that explains everything:
Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice.
I hate when people use the original version of that rule because it’s never a good lense. The original should be ‘Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to profit’, or do people really think the world is run by idiots who just accidentally managed to profit off of every single time things got worse.
They always say the same. “Oops we did massive war crimes in Korea and Afghanistan and Iraq and oopsie we’re doing a Genocide in Gaza! It was all with the best of intentions we’re just so clumsy haha!”
What were the war crimes in Korea? I would have thought Vietnam would be an easier example. Though admittedly I don’t know much about the Korean war.
The Korean war is weirdly never really mentioned. It was a lot like Vietnam but more at the beginning of the cold war. We did an amazing amount of war crimes. Napalm was really hot back then (badum ts)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea
Air forces of the United Nations Command carried out an extensive bombing campaign against North Korea from 1950 to 1953 during the Korean War. It was the first major bombing campaign for the United States Air Force (USAF) since its inception in 1947 from the United States Army Air Forces. During the campaign, conventional weapons such as explosives, incendiary bombs, and napalm destroyed nearly all of the country’s cities and towns, including an estimated 85% of its buildings.[1]
A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea.[2] By comparison, the U.S. dropped 1.6 million tons in the European theater and 500,000 tons in the Pacific theater during all of World War II (including 160,000 on Japan). North Korea ranks alongside Cambodia (500,000 tons), Laos (2 million tons), and South Vietnam (4 million tons) as among the most heavily-bombed countries in history.[3]
We just see Kim Jong Un waving with his ballistic missiles and thinking he’s a funny crazy man that hates America for no reason. That’s the magic of telling one side of history.
I don’t understand how he can make changes to the Supreme Court using this new Supreme Court ruling. My understanding is that change requires Congress and the recent ruling just means he can’t be held accountable for crimes committed as official acts.
What crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
Biden has been fighting Congress since he took office on this…
When we had the numbers, he said he’d “look into it” and then we didn’t hear back till after the midterms when we no longer had the numbers to do it.
The reason it wasn’t done when we could, is Joe Biden.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/biden-support-expanding-supreme-court-white-house/story?id=85703773
After he was elected, Biden appointed a 36-member bipartisan commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court – including the addition of more seats, as well as term limits and a code of ethics for justices.
The commission unanimously adopted a report late last year, in which they warned that excessive change to the institution could cause democracy to regress in the future.
The panel found “considerable” support for 18-year term limits for justices, but the issue of expanding the court beyond nine seats was met with “profound disagreement.”
Because the bipartisan commission claimed fixing it would do more harm then letting the current corrupt court do shit like repeal Roe v Wade and all the other shit Biden now says was so terrible.
But if elected again, he still won’t fix.
That’s a big reason Biden has a 37% approval rating, he opposed actually fixing things. And just wants to maintain the status quo.
It’s not a valid long term strategy.
Moderates just want to complain, they don’t want to actually fix shit. We’ve been ignoring it since Obama’s pick was stolen, ignoring it more won’t magically solve it.
Ok, but what crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
He could throw them in prison extrajudicially for actions against the US government including treason for their support of 1/6… Hell, he can ship em to Gitmo even tho theyre US citizens.
Although I’ve seen far less civilized but more permanent suggestions.
It’s not even a crime, or false accusation.
And as an official act, no one can go after Biden for it.
If Biden believes trump is the threat he says he is, then he needs to do that. But ideally he would have expanded the SC back in 2021 when we had the numbers.
Like, we’re backed into this corner because Biden decided to walk into it…
My understanding is many supporters of Biden don’t want a coup or fascism.
If Biden engages in those acts wouldn’t that result in less votes and support? And also increase the chances republicans get away with a coup/facism?
Also, my understanding is a supermajority is required in Congress to change the Supreme Court. Which we did not have in 2021. Am I wrong?
If Biden engages in those acts wouldn’t that result in less votes and support? And also increase the chances republicans get away with a coup/facism?
Republicans are gonna republican. But we’re literally fight fascism so…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Also, my understanding is a supermajority is required in Congress to change the Supreme Court. Which we did not have in 2021. Am I wrong?
Can be done with a simple majority, which we had till 2022. If Dems really fought and tossed out the filibuster, but they didn’t.
Instead Biden created a bipartisan committee to investigate if the corrupt Republican SC should be allowed to stand as is. He gave them 6 months, and after 2 years (as soon as Dems.lost the House) they decided we should just let it go.
At every step, Biden and party leadership refuse to fight.
We can’t afford that. If trump is as dangerous as they say (he is) then we need to actually fight.
Even if we lose, it motivates voters for the next election.
But he could still, this very day, arrest them for treason and jail them indefinitely and no one can stop him due to the SC’s recent ruling.
From what I’ve read, impeaching a Supreme Court justice requires the same impeachment process as the president so 2/3rds. Not a simple majority.
But even if it could be done with a simple majority, your statement depends on the vote of Manchin and Sinema.
He could throw them in prison extrajudicially for actions against the US government including treason for their support of 1/6… Hell, he can ship em to Gitmo even tho theyre US citizens.
I didn’t say anything about impeachment…
From 2020-2022 we could have added justices with a simple majority after throwing out the filibuster.
We didn’t.
We are running out of actions because we are running out of time. I wish Biden wouldn’t have wasted those two years with a bipartisan commission to find out if everything was fine…
But he did.
Due to the recent SC ruling, Biden faces no punishment for actions committed in office. So he can jail Clarence and everyone else who’s corrupt in jail and thus remove the conservative majority. Hell, legally he can have them executed for treason without trial, but I think Gitmo and no communication is more than enough.
There’s lots of people in GITMO who have done far less
If trump is the threat Biden says (he is) then we need to do whatever we can to prevent trump.
Do you disagree that trump is an existential threat to American democracy and we may never recover if he becomes president.
Biden has already prerecorded his congratulations to trump phone call and plans on sending it a week before the election. He believes it’s the only option available to him under the constitution and prevailing sense of political realism.
Getting to the point where someone might need to invade and liberate the United States.
Come on, guys! We’ve got oil and everything!
If you VOTE for the Person who CURRENTLY HAS THE POWER TO REIGN IN THE FASCIST COURT they’ll do something about the Court! Pinky Promise!
Because it’s a stupid idea. Some Democrats and Liberals want to completely change our political system, judicial system, and Constitution, because thy’re not getting their way? It’s fucking stupid. Trump was in office and was able to appoint who he wanted…it’s pure luck that things worked out in his favor during his Presidency… t’s a cycle that will continue when he’s long gone and some hardcore liberal President does the same… we don’t change everything because one side is upset. STFU Democrats.
Okay, tell me what Project 2025’s purpose is.
What a stupid take, you sound like a fucking moron.
Ah yes, spoken like a true liberal. I’m a fucking moron for having a different opinion.
No, you’re a moron for having a moronic opinion.
Trump had as many appointments because McConnells Senate held up hearing Garlands nomination (not to mention a record number of lower court appointments). And then rushed in Gorsuch. And then when RBG died even closer to an election, they showed their hypocrisy with Barrett.
And the entire point of Project 2025 is to replace a metric shitton of non-political merit-based federal jobs with political appointments so he can staff them full of cronies and circumvent checks and balances that way. Congress won’t outlaw hormonal birth control? No worries, FDA can do that. Unitary Executive Theory.
They do what they want, when they want, until somebody stops them. And now, legally, nobody can stop them. Not without using the monkeys paw that this court just handed Biden.
I love how I can be called every single name in the book on Lemmy and Reddit for having a different opinion, but for some reason, when I retaliate, I’m banned, threatened, or warned… funny how ultra Liberal these sites have become…
nice bait lmao
Bait? Sorry, I forgot we’re not allowed to have a different opinion in these parts…
worse bait.
Except it wasn’t pure luck things worked out for Trumps term regarding the SC appointees. Obama was able to pick one or two which was blocked and vetoed and filibustered by the cons for years until their guy was there.
Moron.
