Ongoing discussion of SCOTUS cases (3 Viewers)

The more I'm reading and learning about the immunity ruling, the less I'm liking the ruling. The President is now effectively immune fron both criminal and civil litigation. And the Court didn't lay out what specifically falls under non-official acts, and it doesn't really matter.

I will say this though, Biden could do some serious damage if he wanted to because he'd be effectively immune from prosecution. He could essentially stop the elections and declare himself dictator based on the ruling. Who's to say he can't do it. Congress has no recourse. Impeachment won't happen since Congress is completely divided and neither side has enough votes in the Senate to convict the president of anything.

We're screwed.

This here is a good recap of the decision.

SaintForLife said:

Just because it didn't work out how Democrats hoped it would doesn't negate the fact that there is a system in place to remove a President despite all the ridiculous claims that they President is like a king now after the SCOTUS ruling.

If Trump killed his political rival, enough Republicans would vote to impeach him.

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right all those suckups that lied and slithered and made themselves into trump toady just to become his vp or get his support are going to stand against him? right, they sacrificed their backbones on the altar of Trump and they are no useless toadies. trump has sucked all the spines and balls out of the GOP they are as powerful as a wet tissue.

SaintForLife said:

Those instances show the President enjoyed functional immunity from 1789 to 2023. SCOTUS has now codifed that immunity thanks to Jack Smith's cockamamie and newly concocted theory designed to specifically prosecute Trump.

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This is completely deranged. I mean like totally coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs insane.

There isn’t anything new in what Jack Smith is prosecuting Trump for, the only new thing is that a President has never in over 250 years ever done the stupid and criminal shirt that Trump did.

It’s complete gaslighting to pretend otherwise. You need help.


A case can be made that the corrupt 5 or 6 justices on the Supreme Court did tailor their immunity decision to specifically help Trump. That is a distinct possibility.

SaintForLife said:

Just because it didn't work out how Democrats hoped it would

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Name me a time it has EVER worked. Do you imagine that Trump’s times are the only ones?

SaintForLife said:

Just because it didn't work out how Democrats hoped it would doesn't negate the fact that there is a system in place to remove a President despite all the ridiculous claims that they President is like a king now after the SCOTUS ruling.

If Trump killed his political rival, enough Republicans would vote to impeach him.

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You're about a gullible as they come. Susan Collins wants to have a conversation with you.

SaintForLife said:

Just because it didn't work out how Democrats hoped it would doesn't negate the fact that there is a system in place to remove a President despite all the ridiculous claims that they President is like a king now after the SCOTUS ruling.

If Trump killed his political rival, enough Republicans would vote to impeach him.

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He probably would do it like Putin, which is tagging them as a national security threat and then having them jailed in a place like Quantanamo. If he did have them killed, he would do it near the end of his 2nd term, when impeachment would be irrelevant. Regardless, if Republicans think it would hurt their chances of remaining in office, they would justify his actions, so they wouldn't impeach him. If they wouldn't impeach him for his inaction to stop the riots that threatened their lives and the transition of power on January 6th, then there is little basis to believe they would do it for anything. Even if he got impeached, the fear and damage it would create could not be undone, and his VP would take over. In addition, if he didn't violate or suspend the constitution to remain in office for a 3rd term, then he would hand pick his successor. It wouldn't surprise me if he were to declare martial law and suspend or indefinitely delay elections. He could then gin up some national threat to justify remaining in office.

A supreme court decision that overturned the “Chevron doctrine” could upend regulations on everything from tobacco to pharmaceuticals to surprise medical bills, experts told the Guardian.

The 40-year-old legal framework, the Chevron doctrine, once directed courts to defer to the expertise of federal agencies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In a far-reaching decision, the court’s conservative supermajority held last week in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo and Relentless Inc v Department of Commerce that the reverse should apply, with courts having the final say over even highly technical regulations.

“This was a gut punch for health, safety and the environment in the US,” said Prof Lawrence O Gostin, an expert in health law and a professor at Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute. “There’ll be no area where agencies act to protect the public’s health or safety or the environment that won’t be adversely affected by this ruling.”


Liberal Justice Elena Kagan predicted the decisionwould “jolt” the legal system by dispensing with a framework that had become part of the “warp and woof of modern government.”

Combined with a second, less high-profile ruling that expanded the time for people to sue agencies, experts said the end of the Chevron doctrine is certain to be felt in the everyday lives of Americans.

For instance, the tobacco industry may have an easier time challenging controversial regulations on vaping products; drug makers could face new uncertainties as they invest millions in new research and development; and it may be easier for doctors to argue against rules that prohibit sending patients surprise medical bills. In turn, agencies may divert funding from staff experts, such as scientists, to attorneys, who can defend their decisions.

At the same time, the court’s opinion was cheered by big business and Republican allies. Senator Mitch McConnell said the decision “leaves no room for an unelected bureaucracy to co-opt this authority for itself”, CNBC reported.……

SaintForLife said:

Just because it didn't work out how Democrats hoped it would doesn't negate the fact that there is a system in place to remove a President despite all the ridiculous claims that they President is like a king now after the SCOTUS ruling.

If Trump killed his political rival, enough Republicans would vote to impeach him.

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The fact that you had to use "enough" shows you know not all Republicans would vote to impeach Trump if he committed murder. It's a party and group of Americans putting the ends before the means that leads to fascism.

DaveXA said:

The more I'm reading and learning about the immunity ruling, the less I'm liking the ruling. The President is now effectively immune fron both criminal and civil litigation. And the Court didn't lay out what specifically falls under non-official acts, and it doesn't really matter.

I will say this though, Biden could do some serious damage if he wanted to because he'd be effectively immune from prosecution. He could essentially stop the elections and declare himself dictator based on the ruling. Who's to say he can't do it. Congress has no recourse. Impeachment won't happen since Congress is completely divided and neither side has enough votes in the Senate to convict the president of anything.

We're screwed.

This here is a good recap of the decision.

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She does a good breakdown on how this SC is conjuring magic out of thin air in a Machiavellian way.

What you might notice if you follow the lines above carefully is that the question of motive — the reason that an action was taken — doesn’t even enter the equation until after the determination of whether the actions was official or unofficial has been made. Indeed, the Court explicitly states that “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.”

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This is an astonishing statement, because it effectively means that it does not matter if a President uses the official levers of power with corrupt intent, for personal gain, or as retribution. In other words, the Court engages a sleight of hand where a critical distinction between lawful and unlawful conduct — the heart of criminal law, which rests on whether a person acted with a specific state of mind, or mens rea — ceases to exist when it comes to the President. Once this distinction is erased, the office of the presidency is basically a get out of jail free card, enabling the President to do pretty much anything that could plausibly be characterized as “official.”

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In other words, the Court has created immunity for the one category of actions where it actually matters — unlawful official acts — everything else that is left either would have never been prosecuted anyway or was always fair game.

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She goes further. It's worth a read. Even the possibility that Nixon would not have resigned had this decision was made prior to Watergate.

My analogy would be with killing in common law. As a society, we decide punishment of killings based on motives and circumstances. Did one kill in self defense? Was it out of emotional distress? Accidental? Anger? Vengeful? Hateful? Manslaughter, 1st degree, 2nd degree, willful negligence, etc. So this court basically ruled all killings are murder. Or, more apt, every killing is in self-defense. Because the law cannot use motives or intent, all official acts are now immune. Such BS.

Finally got around to reading through the immunity ruling. There is a rather peculiar concurrence written by Thomas that appears to be a complete primer for Judge Cannon on disqualifying Special Counsel Jack Smith based on the Appointments Clause.

Sendai said:

Finally got around to reading through the immunity ruling. There is a rather peculiar concurrence written by Thomas that appears to be a complete primer for Judge Cannon on disqualifying Special Counsel Jack Smith based on the Appointments Clause.

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I think he’s a completely political actor and if our system were functioning as intended he would be impeached by now, and undergoing trial. So this is a clue to you that what you are proposing isn’t a really serious stance.

MT15 said:

I think he’s a completely political actor and if our system were functioning as intended he would be impeached by now, and undergoing trial. So this is a clue to you that what you are proposing isn’t a really serious stance.

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Not proposing anything. Just seemed peculiar to find it in the immunity ruling and it’s rather obvious it’s targeted at judge Cannon.

Sendai said:

Not proposing anything. Just seemed peculiar to find it in the immunity ruling and it’s rather obvious it’s targeted at judge Cannon.

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The entire decision is targeted at getting Trump out of legal jeopardy IMO. It has some very unusual tenets that nobody saw coming. It’s as political as it can be. Roberts is a disgrace to the court for putting it out there.

Sendai said:

Not proposing anything. Just seemed peculiar to find it in the immunity ruling and it’s rather obvious it’s targeted at judge Cannon.

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It's corrupt on Thomas's part, so it better seem peculiar to people.

guess this can go here
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If Donald Trump wins the White House this fall and has a chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice or two in the years that follow — by no means a certain prospect, but one that must be contemplated — his nominees are likely to be quite different than they were during his first term. Everything we know about Mr. Trump today suggests that he will take his judicial cues not from the conservative legal establishment, as he did previously, but instead from the conservative legal movement’s extreme fringes.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump joined forces with the Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, who helped assemble a shortlist of conservative judges from which Mr. Trump pledged to select a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia. Mr. Trump’s decision to publicly align himself with Mr. Leo helped settle the nerves of establishment Republicans who were skeptical of the candidate’s ideological bona fides, and played a significant role in the 2016 election.

(One exit poll showed that among voters for whom Supreme Court appointments were the most important issue, 56 percent voted for Mr. Trump.) As president, Mr. Trump selected all his nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — from versions of the shortlist, which he periodically updated.

In the past four years, however, Mr. Trump has soured on the conservative legal establishment. He was reportedly furious with lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department — many of them recommended to him by the Federalist Society — who were, in his view, insufficiently willing to help him overturn the 2020 election results. He felt similarly about Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, perceiving their refusals to entertain his various voter fraud cases as disappointing exhibitions of disloyalty..............

In March, Mr. Trump suggested that he’d update his Supreme Court shortlist for a potential second term — by the end of which Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor would have celebrated their 80th, 78th and 74th birthdays — but he has yet to do so. In the meantime, the types of activists who are likely to have Mr. Trump’s ear are busy making lists of their own.

One proposal comes from AFA Action, an organization whose mission is “to align policy with biblical and constitutional principles.” Its list features three Trump-appointed federal appeals court judges: James Ho, best known for his unironic use of the phrase “woke Constitution”; Stuart Kyle Duncan, notorious for shrieking at student protesters during a talk at Stanford Law School; and Lawrence VanDyke, whose peers have described him, according to the American Bar Association, as “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice.” (In 2019, the association deemed him “not qualified” for judicial confirmation.)

From there, the list gets only more unhinged. It includes Kristen Waggoner, the president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group; Morse Tan, the Liberty University law school dean who once opined that abortion since Roe v. Wade “makes the Holocaust look small by comparison”; and Mark Martin, a former state supreme court justice who is now the dean of a law school in North Carolina that has not yet been approved by the American Bar Association. (Mr. Martin, probably the most obscure name on the list, served as an informal adviser to Mr. Trump during his fight to overturn the results of the 2020 election.)

You might think that a Justice Ho or a Justice Waggoner wouldn’t significantly alter this Supreme Court’s ideological composition. Conservatives already have a supermajority, so even if a liberal justice were to retire or die during a second Trump term and be replaced with a conservative, the outcomes of Supreme Court cases might be no different.

But outcomes are only part of the story. Consider how the court, which exercises near total control over its docket, chooses to use its limited time and resources. It takes only four votes for the court to review a case, which means that if a fringe figure joined the court, he or she would need to convince just three other justices to consider radical legal theories that attack long-settled precedent. Such a court could entertain challenges to, for example, Miranda v. Arizona, which requires police to inform criminal suspects of their constitutional rights; Griswold v. Connecticut, which protects the freedom to use contraceptives; or Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to same-sex marriage less than a decade ago...............