“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the supreme court of the United States.”

Throughout his address, Biden underscored the gravity of the moment, emphasizing that the only barrier to the president’s authority now lies in the personal restraint of the officeholder. He warned vehemently against the prospect of Trump returning to power, painting a stark picture of the dangers such an outcome could pose.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      He doesn’t. Impeaching judges is the House’s job.

      You know your house rep is up for election this year?

      • realitista@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Yeah but now he’s above the law, so I say do it anyway and overturn the ruling his damn self.

        • madjo@feddit.nl
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          4 months ago

          It sets precedents that you might not want, because if Trump or one of his cronies get into the oval office, they can do the same thing.

            • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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              4 months ago

              I think the problem is, if Dems do it first, they’re not better than the Republicans.

              Unilateral dictatorships are unilateral dictatorships no matter who does it.

              You can’t win in a game where one side insists on cheating and one side insists on following the rules. Our system of governance wasn’t designed for this level of factionhood. It should and could’ve been stopped the right way maybe 20 or 30 years ago. At the least, 8 years ago. And the very last chance was when Trump’s second impeachment made it to the Senate.

              But now, there’s no chance.

              It’s not even really “cheating” that the Republicans are doing. Most everything is getting a “legal” stamp of approval. Just in a shady way that clearly and defiantly goes against everything this country has ever been about.

              Hey I know another politician who was pretty popular for his time that did the same thing. Bright young man with a funny mustache.

          • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY DONT YOU FUCKING PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT THEY WILL ALREADY FUCKING DO THAT!!! THEY DO NOT NEED OR EVEN WANT DEMOCRAT PERMISSION OR PRECEDENT!!! Goddamn a you fucking milquetoast losers who defended free speech for Nazis all this time and got us in this fucking predicament!! You NEVER understand who you’re dealing with!!

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            If Trump gets back into office, it’s game over, unless the people are willing to fight a civil war to stop him. Though even that will probably be too little too late because of the power vacuum it will likely create on the world stage when WWIII already looks possible in the next decade.

            It might already be too late because I agree that Biden pushing his weight around with these new lack of presidential limits would get messy. But the cat is out of the bag right now and it’s not going to go quietly back in.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Legally … but the law doesn’t apply to the president so long as they’re doing it for a reason they believe to be official.

        • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          The ruling more or less explicitly states that Biden could go on national television, say “Won’t someone rid me of these troublesome justices?”, have them assassinated, and face no legal repercussions because using the bully pulpit is covered by presidential immunity

          • Madison420@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Farther. He could use the military or any branch of government to kill them and still get immunity. We now have a long, don’t get me wrong we always had some assumption that that’s how it went but seeing it on paper is an eye opener.

            Hell, he could sign literally every US asset over to anyone he pleases and there’s nothing we could do via a legal means. It’s not supposed to work that way but if no law constrains the office then the office is simply free to do literally whatever they want.

        • Akuden@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The law applies to the president always.

          Here is what this ruling is for -

          First - if I order an enemy of the US dead I can be prosecuted.

          The president orders an enemy dead. That enemy is killed. The president cannot be prosecuted for that act.

          What this ruling does - the president may also not be prosecuted for that act after they leave office.

          That’s all this does. That’s it. If the president kills a maid in the White House he or she will go to prison because that is against the law and not within the duties of the office.

          • Madison420@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            It doesnt.

            Nope.

            Agreed.

            No or means they can’t be prosecuted for it ever so long as it was under the guise of an official act.

            Nope, that maid was a spy and deserved what she got.

      • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        – again

        they’ll still find some other excuse not to do anything the next time around.

          • spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful

              No more than the CARES Act or the PROSWIFT Act or the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 or the Hong Kong Autonomy and Uyghur Human Rights Policy Acts, under the prior administration. We’ve never had a problem issuing large bipartisan bailouts in the thick of a recession, rolling out buckets of cash for proxy wars, or pissing away trillions on expanding legacy highway infrastructure. This is not something unique that Biden brought to the table.

              Hell, Trump was even sending military aid to Ukraine as early as 2019. One could argue it was this military escalation and subsequent bombing of the Donbas that kicked off the war with Russia to begin with. Thanks for that!

              Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism

              Because they’re a party heavily populated with Pro-Life Democrats, they genuinely like the business-friendly / anti-regulatory bent to the SCOTUS, and they are more than happy to break bread with fascists just so long as the fascists can be used as proxies against enemies of US business interests at home and abroad.

              This isn’t a fucking accident. It is deliberate bipartisan consensus.

              Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though

              Exactly what they did in 2009. Send trillions of new dollars to the privatized tech sector. Roll out new privatization schemes for the USPS and US Education System. Bailout failed banks. Increase the size and the authority of police agencies. And impose a host of new unfunded mandates on consumers - via tariffs, anti-union tax increases on health insurance, and private lending schemes - that only serve to degrade quality of life in pursuit of higher corporate profits.

              FFS, the lowest hanging fruit imaginable for the Democratic Party is DC Statehood. Easiest win imaginable to just hand yourself two free Senators and 3-4 new House Reps. And they won’t do it.

              • spidermanchild@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.

                As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.

          • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            that was only a few years ago and i’m going to assume you’re older than 10.

        • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          They impeached Trump twice. It’s not their fault the Constitution requires a 2/3 majority to convict and only 7 Republicans were willing to put country above party.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Like Matt Gaetz, who should be in jail. And MTG, who should be in jail. And Lauren Boebert, who should be in jail. And…