Once they legalized coups, they lost all legitimacy in my opinion.
The SCOTUS situation is scarier than the POTUS situation which was already frightening enough.
*Coups are only legal if initiated by the President.
Don’t forget they legalized bribery long before making coups legal. That’s when they were testing the waters. Now they know they can be blatent with their rulings and noone will hold them accountable.
Hmmm, I wonder if the left or any democracy loving peoples can create a temporary armed anti-coup force, just in case?
The silver lining here is they have no power of enforcement themselves, and their decisions can be reversed if a sane court is built around them by leaders with enough spine to do so.
Democrats just need to get Biden out of the race so Trump can be kept out of office. And the house majority is very slim, so that can potentially be flipped too if the base can actually be energized instead of suppressed the way they have been. Democrats win when there is high turn out, so the name of the game needs to be showing people that Democrats are capable of listening.
…if a sane court is built around them by leaders with enough spine
Lack of spine isn’t the issue. It’s lack of political power.
And even then what would the new court do? If they go back to operating the way they did before this judicial coup, that wouldn’t actually fix any of the damage done. Or remove the traitor sitting on the SCOTUS.
A court with more judges would water down the influence of any extremists.
But yes, packing the court alone doesn’t guaruntee the court can’t be captured again. What Elie Mystal suggested way back when the court majority had flipped was basically two things that should happen:
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expand the court by alot, maybe somewhere within 20-30, similar to the 9th circuit that’s just below the Supreme Court. This helps dilute the power of individual crazies like Alito and then
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Rotate judges out routinely to other federal positions. This allows for their life-time appointment still, but ensures also that, due to the high number of justices, every administration is getting an opportunity to appoint a few judges every time. That revolving door means it wpuld require multiple far-right administrations to pin the court down like it is now.
There’s no reason the court needs to be nine justices, we’ve had more and less throughout our history as a nation, and there’s no reason that the courts power needs to be concentrated into the hands of so few individuals, since the purpose of the court is suppose to be a moderating force of legal scholars, not an explicitly partisan body.
None of this addresses my point. There isn’t the political power to do it.
And even if there was, the court has already essentially overturned precedent as a concept. That can’t just be rolled back without completely reworking the court, which…see my first point…
Yes, it depends up getting people out to vote, especially in mid-terms.
Precedent is literally just a tradition that’s agreed upon, there’s nothing binding judges to adhere to it, which is why the supreme court was so easily able to ignore it.
So in that sense it’s a double-edged sword, it’s just as easy for judges to rule by precedent as it is for them to not, it’s always been this way.
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Lack of spine isn’t the issue. It’s lack of political power.
The court literally just gave Biden the power.
No, they get to decide what an official act is. So the only way this works out is Biden 66ing the extremist judges and the remaining vote that it was an official act. They get to decide what official acts are. So everyone Rubepublican has free reign and every democrat is boxed in.
So the only way this works out is Biden 66ing the extremist judges and the remaining vote that it was an official act.
Yep, that’s what I said: the court literally just gave Biden the power to do that.
But, he could do anything else and they’d rule it as unofficial as long as they breathe
…as long as they breathe
True, but they wouldn’t be anymore, in this hypothetical scenario. I’m not sure why we’re belaboring that point.
they have no power of enforcement themselves
…which is why they’re working in tandem with the corrupt GOP, which does have the power. There isn’t a separation of powers in practice, just Democrats and Republicans.
Yes, what I’m saying is if you can keep the GOP out of power you hobble the supreme court. Like I said, it’s a source of hope and a goal to aim your political effort towards, not a permanent solution.
People downvoting this seem confused. I made the assumption people were able to understand I was talking longer term fight.
Bernie/AOC ticket 2024 plz
Or 2028 if we still have elections then
I love Bernie, but he’s 82 and has heart disease.
Trump is mentally challenged and he’s still running
Would be easily the biggest age gap between president and vice president
My god can we get a younger social Democrat please? Fuckin A I’m tired of people born before WW2 ended making all the policy decisions. I was going to say before the moon landing but they were all adults when that happened. They’re not even Boomers. They’re fucking older than boomers.
Is there anyone younger with stances like Bernie?
Katie Porter & AOC would be amazing
If those two ran on a presidential ticket together, the Republican Party would dial up the “it’ll be the end times if they win and only our lord and savior Trump can stop it” to 1000.
Other than the actual real world insanity, I’d love to see them pop some blood vessels.
Most of America. But they aren’t becoming politicians. Mostly because politicians are really bad people for the most part. You get maybe 5 percent that don’t have ulterior motives.
5 percent is awfully generous. Maybe it’s that high for people that try to run, but the vast majority of people that win are sucking someone’s teet.
Talib, AOC? Cori Bush?
Who cares how old they are as long as they have the right positions on the issues and a sound mind? I love having people with some wisdom in there.
You’ve never seen what dementia can do to a person. Or, just the general confusion that comes with age. I’m happy for you, honestly it sucks to watch. Someone who used to know everything suddenly gets confused on the way to a restaurant they’ve been to a thousand times. Forgets why they called, or even that they called you in the first place. And, importantly, have their opinions flip on a dime with no warning whatsoever.
This isn’t necessarily dementia, it can be caused by any number of things, ailments that younger people would brush off without a thought.
You’ve never seen what dementia can do to a person.
Believe me, I know all too well. I’ve had a few family members die from Alzheimer’s. Losing someone is never easy, but you lose that person long before they pass away and it’s heartbreaking.
My point is that age is merely a number. There are people well above the age of Biden and have all their mental faculties.
Idk. I feel like Jay Pritzker/Warren 2028 would be fucking sweet
It’s not too late to pack that fucker. Sinema and Manchin could sit it out while Harris breaks the ties. Judicial nominations do not have the filibuster. If you’re looking for a campaign season pick me up, this kind of direct response to SCOTUS going off the rails is something that could do it.
Fucking fight Dems, and you’ll get backed up. We’re tired of watching you do nothing while the GOP pisses on everything. This would be a great way to demonstrate that a vote for Biden is for more than a neoliberal order controlling a sleepy old man.
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Fun fact, the Constitution gives authority to make new SCOTUS judges to the Senate and the President. Congress as a whole only has the power to organize courts below SCOTUS. The entire idea that the house can set the size of the court is unsupported.
I thought that eliminating the filibuster took a 3/5th vote in the senate. That’s 60 votes. We are nowhere close, though I support holding it to a vote to put it on the record, to highlight the hypocrisy later.
The filibuster is already gone in regards to judicial appointments, The Republicans killed it and the Democrats didn’t bring it back. But also, yeah the chamber rules are a simple majority vote. It’s Manchin and Sinema keeping that from happening, but also without the house of representatives it’s kind of useless to get rid of it right now.
I wish the dnc didn’t fuck him over
Me too. Well, I guess I’ll support the dnc anyway and vote for biden/genocide because I prefer trump’s policies with biden’s veneer of politeness rather than trump’s policies with trump’s veneer of impoliteness.
You’re free to commit terroristic political assassinations if you feel the two party system is too restrictive. It worked fine for Oswald.
It also works well for the CIA, which has been rescuing Nazis and assassinating leftwing political leaders around the world for decades. Oswald was also working for them. Oh well, back to watching CIA talking heads on MSNBC / CNN / the New York Times / the glorified reddit with extra steps known as lemmy
I wish I lived in your world where people were actually competent.
But in the real world, the CIA, working in Lebanon, used a code word “Pizza” to literally mean, go to the local Pizza Hut for more orders. Hezbollah used their amazing deductive reasoning skills to crack the code, and then just had people watch that particular Pizza Hut. They ended up outing about a dozen highly trained CIA agents and the informants they were meeting with.
In the 60s, these chuckle fucks were too busy secretly dosing each other with LSD to actually get anything done.
Every revolution or regime change that the CIA was involved in ended up a complete clusterfuck. Look at the Bay of Pigs as an example.
The only thing they’ve ever been good at is smuggling drugs, and they only reason they were good at that is that they could tell the DEA to look the other way.
And there are stories of fuckups from CIA drug smuggling. Like Iran-Contra. The Contra were trading drugs for guns so they could literally run around as right-wing death squads.
Anyway, this is a long rant to say that the CIA wishes they were competent enough to have been behind Oswald. They were not then, and are not now. But they love the PR, and some of them might even believe the bullshit. Doesn’t make it true.
Remind me who placed the Shah in power in Iran. Also, please tell me about the coup in Guatemala. Who was running Cuba before the workers/peasants sent nazis like yourself packing?
I’m not saying the CIA doesn’t do damage, I’m saying that they’re not competent enough to do it on purpose.
The CIA wishes they did even a quarter of the shit people say they do, but are not actually masterminds. Because no one is. No one runs the world, and Color Revolution is made up nonsense.
The CIA cut a deal with a general in Iran to overthrow the government, but that general was already planning the coup before the CIA caught wind of it. But wouldn’t you guess, the guy the CIA backed didn’t actually win in the end.
As to Cuba, did you know that the CIA tried to kill Castro like 30 times? Some of the attempts read like a Three Stooges routine.
The KGB was just as bad. Their fuckups are less documented because of how controlled the media is in Russia and the USSR before it’s fall.
Guatemala, Iran, the Congo, and the Dominican Republic are all listed here:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/20/mapped-the-7-governments-the-u-s-has-overthrown/
This doesn’t include Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Israel, where the CIA has been heavily involved for decades. They were also very much involved in destroying the USSR, now that you mention it, and happily admit to all of this (in addition to rescuing thousands of high-profile nazis). They’ve also admitted to controlling the corporate media (Operation Mockingbird) and just admitted to pushing anti-vaxx propaganda in the Philippines. Millions of needless deaths can easily be attributed to them. Do you enjoy listening to people who rescue nazis telling you how to think on CNN and in the NYT?
We could’ve had Bernie in the Whitehouse. He really could have been president. This country is doomed.
We could’ve had Gore back in 2000. Oh wait…
I’ve said this so many times
Damn bruh if only we had the power to summarily imprison those greasy fucks.
Biden does if he deems it an official act!
We called for this on day 1 of Biden’s first term…
He chose to put a bipartisan committee in charge of seeing if we should just let the corrupt Republican SC stay in power, and the committee waited two years till dems didnt have the numbers to fix anything, before recommending Dems don’t fix anything.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/biden-support-expanding-supreme-court-white-house/story?id=85703773
The aristocrats! /s
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.
You can’t reform the court without a Constitutional Amendment since the operation and formation of the court is defined by the Constitution.
So, 2/3rds vote in the House, 2/3rds vote in the Senate, ratification by the States.
and aren’t willing to ditch the fucking filibuster, there’s literally nothing they can do.
That’s the rub.
We have things we can do, but party leadership don’t want to do it.
So when they say they can’t do anything, things like “get rid of the filibuster” come up. And they party has to acknowledge that would work…
They’re just not willing to do it.
Which when that comes back to voters, makes them less likely to vote. Because they feel like even when we have the numbers, it won’t change anything because party leadership wants to have the fight against fascism with at least one hand tied behind their back out of an outdated sense of honor.
We’re fucking fighting fascism bro.
What matters is winning.
.
And 2/3 of both houses is easy mode compared to State ratification. We couldn’t get states to agree that the sky is blue at this point in the collapse of the country.
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“If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office”
Why do that when they can exploit a shitty system instead? They now are there for the rest of their lives and can interpret the law to mean whatever they want and there is no legal recourse to do anything about it as long as their corrupt party has enough power to prevent impeachment.
No shit.
Someone’s gotta say it, because too much of the narrative is “it’s no big deal lol” to keep people complacent.
Ber-nie! Ber-nie! Ber-nie!
Vote harder, change the party from inside, blue no matter who!
Fucking let’s go. Do it.
Bidens guys already came out saying they don’t want to reform the Supreme Court. It’s not on the ballot this cycle.
Yeah I just saw that. Ridiculous.
And in 2 years he’ll probably “regret” not doing anything.2 years he might come to regret that decision in January when Trump usess his new powers to lock his ass up.
If fucking Biden lose in November he better use that new gift to stop Trump. Dumbass really wants to use this to fundraiser on, Biden so out of fucking touch he got no clue that we are just this vote away from a Christofascist state.
I ALMOST want to vote Trump just to see SOMEONE (like Biden) FINALLY receive Consequences for their Actions! ALMOST.
In other words everyone, things are not going according to Liberals/Democrats, so, we need to change the entire structure, Constitution, and political system in America.
In 1982 SCOTUS made a decision on this:
“We hold that the petitioner, as a former President of the United States, is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts.”
The media, the Democrats, but I repeat myself, have all been lying to you. This has always been the case. Nothing has changed.
Nope, the real lie was SCOTUS was becoming liberal instead of just making a few liberal rulings here and there. This was used as a battle cry to put in more conservatives, remember the “activists” judges they were wringing their hands about. So now we don’t even get a few liberal rulings sprinkled here and there.
Full stop, SCOTUS has always been conservative. History has already proven this
I wonder why you’d prefer a partisan court?
I did not say I support it, just that it has always been conservative. I am pretty sure I was agreeing with you just elaborating on a point.
“We hold that the petitioner, as a former President of the United States, is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts.”
Specifically, immunity from civil damages. The president couldn’t be sued by randos claiming he cost them a job or whatever.
This is a new class of fascism. Keep on trollin’.
The president has always enjoyed immunity for performing official duties. Obviously.
This most recent ruling wildly expanded the immunity, added presumed immunity for adjacent actions, and phrased everything in such a way that actually prosecuting the president for literally anything will take years.
Say the president does something you think is illegal and should be prosecuted. Stop. Before you can take him to court over that, you need to determine if what he did was “official” or “unofficial.” SCOTUS didn’t give deterministic guidelines to differentiate, so you need to have a separate court case just for that. Alright so let’s have the court case that determines whether what the president did was official or unofficial. Let’s introduce some evidence—
Stop. Evidence from official acts cannot be introduced in a case to prove something was unofficial. So you actually need to have a separate court case to determine if that evidence is official or unofficial. Once you have your results, one party won’t like it and will appeal it up and up to the supreme court. Repeat for potentially every single piece of evidence.
Okay now that we know what evidence we can and can’t introduce, we can finally determine if what the president did was official or unofficial. Once we have a result, one party won’t like it and it will be appealed all the way up to the supreme court again. Only when SCOTUS rules the action was unofficial (IF they rule it was unofficial) can you then BEGIN the process of actually taking the president to court over that action.
This will take years, not to mention the supreme court is appointed by the president and it recently ruled that taking bribes after you do something instead of before is perfectly legal actually. This is all by design. The point is to keep this all tied up in court for years, which effectively gives the president full immunity for everything. And he can also pressure the courts or judges to rule his way via any number of threats (if you think that’s an unofficial act, feel free to take him to court over it).
This is pretty clearly designed to functionally protect the president from all culpability (which the dissenting SCOTUS opinions agree on, ergo their dissent).
Before prosecuting a president you have always had to stop and determine if what was done was in an official capacity or an unofficial capacity. It’s been like that for 200 years. That’s why you can’t charge bush 1, bush 2, or Obama with war crimes. Furthermore, the court made their stance on Trump quite clear. They did not dismiss any of his cases. If they were in his pocket, and he had this absolute immunity as you claim, all cases would be dropped.
Folks, it’s quite clear what the president can and cannot do. He can pardon, appoint, dismiss, and instruct the military to take actions and has full immunity to do so. Which of course the president must have full immunity for those actions. If you or I send a missle to kill people we would get charged. The president would not.
Moreover, presumptive immunity leaves the door wide open. The ruling says that any action taken with presumptive immunity may be challenged and that the burden is on the government to show that the action was not within the presidents duties, and failed to uphold the constitutional oath taken. If the president blatantly breaks the law that burden of proof would be childish to gather. The president is not above the law, and never was.
