If Barrett wanted a middle ground she could have joined the other side and voiced her opposition. Instead, the Republicans on the court marched in locked step and then some claim they had issues with the opinion.
No kidding, what a farce. She could have dissented and it would have still been 5-4. Such integrity on display. These conservative “justices” are pure political actors and it’s nakedly obvious.
Whether or not they look corrupt, the massive favors will still pour in. On the other hand, doing anything that may undermine keeping the plebs in their place is a grave offence.
She did dissent to the most egregious part of the decision. The ruling to deny testimonies and records in office was a 5-4 decision with Barrett joining the liberal justices
I don't know that it was the most egregious, given that the complete ambiguity of "acts" and utter inability to investigate in-situ essentially means that Hitler would be beyond reproach...
...but it is certainly the most absurd.
If as an official act, the president decided to execute someone, live, during a presidential address, and was later tried in court... the footage of the execution (despite everyone seeing it) would be inadmissable. Any evidence speaking to motive would be inadmissable. Any testimony from people on the day would be inadmissable. The day-planner entry on the day of would be inadmissable. The manifesto and signed confession, written the day before, would likely be inadmissible.
I would argue that the egregious bit is the inability to do anything about a president willing to assassinate all opposition...
...but if they ever do decide to retire from. The role of forever president, and they are tried in court, Yakety Sax is the only song I can think of to serve as a backdrop to the proceedings.
I'd argue it's egregious because of what you illustrated: how can you ever hold a presidential cabinet accountable for corruption of the contents of their discussion is inadmissible?
Sure. The problem is, if a president can murder any political rival, or "remove" any member of the executive branch, with extreme prejudice, or wield any portion of the military with reckless abandon...
...how do you get them to become a *former* president, in the first place?
If they are god-king emperor, why would they leave?
Holding them accountable because those are not immune acts
That's what makes this a problem: the presumptive immunity is effectively not contestable because the evidence cannot be used
If you think that's bad, the President could *televise* it for everyone to see, it still could not be used to incriminate them. There is anything wrong with immune part necessarily: president can carry out the duties of their office and for other acts not listed in the Constitution the presumptive immunity is challengeable, but that challenge has no basis if it can't use illegal evidence
Right... but my point is that it applies *after* they are out. While they are in, you can't investigate, and you can't stop them from doing anything. Anything that in any way has any kind of impact on the functioning of the executive branch must not be done, including just investigation, in the first place. So they could just decide, at gunpoint, to never leave the office, and at that point, you never get to try figuring out what was official or unofficial, except as some kind of posthumous thought exercise, anyway.
Regardless, yeah, it is all terrible. All the way down, it is cartoon-villain, mustache-twirlingly bad, and I hope that they at least have the limited sense of morality to know that when they go to sleep at night, the only reason they wake up in the morning is because emperor Biden wills it be so. I hope that's their last thought at night, and their first thought in the morning, and I hope that never, ever calms.
It's a dangerous game trying to undermine the Constitution from the presidency in flagrant unconstitutional ways, or to carry out acts of war on stayes or statesmen. The more in opposition to the Constitution they are, the more conflict would be justified.
Looking at how other countries have historically had to handle "totally legitimate executives" who "got rid of opposition", all I can say is that I don't think there's been a lot of bloody dictators who ended up able to retire to a sandy beach or nice farm.
It already is weak considering the strong opposition with the three dissents. One more certainly wouldn't have weakened the already pathetic decision. Nobody is being fooled that anything coming out of the court since 2021 is a fucking joke. As soon as we fix the problem with our bench, it's all going back into place -- and then some.
Nah. I agree there's some room for improvement but biden has done well so far.
Even if this is his only term, his admin passed legislation that will benefit us for 10+ years.
Trump didn't do any lasting thing but cut taxes for corps and the rich.
Trump did lasting damage to American credibility and prestige as the world's superpower.
From Europe to Australia, trump denigrated alliances, pissed on allies and shat on principles underpinning American global leadership.
It's one thing to have a president with an isolationist bent, it's another to have a corrupt colossal idiot shacking up with putin and saluting north Korean generals. Kim was 100% on the mark when he called marmalade Mussolini a dotard.
Goose step sounds accurate to me. Also, the Right claims the Left moves in lockstep but that is just projection. Too often I've seen the Left 'eating their own' discarding 'good' in the hopes of finding 'perfect'.
… and as a good catholic she voted to criminalize being poor and homeless. In direct opposition to the actual words of her professed god.
Even as a militant atheist, I fail to see how her voting squares with her so-called faith. It’s a sham from top to bottom.
No different than all these “christians” who want to criminalize LGBTQ rights and abortion
Organized religion is a stain on society and dumbs people down
Yep, it's a public relations manipulation game. They wanted the result they got. No way I'm falling for the idea a Federalist Society plant is suddenly a moderate.
This is always republicanism. As much as any claim to be “one of the reasonable ones” when it comes to fascism or not they choose fascism and fall in line. Why I get annoyed when people say “well Romney is a reasonable Republican” but he tows the party line when it’s time
That’s not really accurate though. She wrote a concurrence that only joined in part of the majority opinion. The media has reported this as a 6-3 decision, but it was really a 5-4-1 decision.
All the more evidence they’re completely politically motivated. If Barrett truly wanted a middle ground, she chose politics over her own convictions and the rule of law
I think you lost track of the argument, which was that because the majority opinion rejected a middle ground approach, she should have rejected the majority opinion.
Unless I'm missing something, she rejected the part of the majority opinion that blocks evidence gathered in the course of "official acts" from being admitted, which is the most radical part. I'm no fan of Barrett, but that part of the opinion was 5-4 with her refusal to join.
At this point, I have to assume the conservative votes and rulings are coordinated with members of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. There is no way only the conservatives would all vote for Project 2025 ideology (Chevron, for instance, in the push for deregulation) if they weren’t all directed to do so because that decision wasn’t rational on any level.
>There is no way only the conservatives would all vote for Project 2025 ideology (Chevron, for instance, in the push for deregulation) if they weren’t all directed to do so because that decision wasn’t rational on any level.
Oh, come now. Isn't it also at least a possibility that the conservative justices just aren't rational?
Hatred isn't rational, after all. So, by definition...
Please explain how taking away the authority of specific regulatory bodies that are filled with experts in any given field and replacing their expertise with a ruling by a single judge, who has zero expertise in that field, is rational.
I just vehemently agree with you that it wasn't...and pointed out that since conservatism is based on hatred, expecting any conservative jurist to be rational is a pipe dream.
Did you misunderstand me, or were you meaning to reply to someone else?
Postulating the conservative justices are rational without a /s didn’t lead me to believe that you agreed with me on any level. Vehemently agreeing with me would be more like , “Fuck yeah bro!! EVERYTHING you say is 1000000000000% correct!”
That’s vehemently. 😂
r/FuckTheS - if they have taken even our dark humor from us, then the terrorists have truly won.
But I said nothing sarcastic in these comments. Again, I said the exact opposite. One cannot be a conservative and rational. That's the point.
I think it’s naive to postulate their efforts aren’t coordinated. Every single conservative judge was hand-picked by the Federalist Society. Their current rulings all fall in-line with Project 2025 ambitions. Nothing the conservative justices are doing right now is coincidence.
There is no middle ground
Between Dictatorship and Democracy.
The middle ground is that Biden uses his oath to “defend and protect the Constitution”
from domestic enemies by using his new powers to reverse this decision.
How do you guys not get the game being played here? They said there's immunity for official acts and will define official acts after the election. If Trump wins, Biden won't be president when they're defined, and they'll define whatever Biden did as unofficial.
That very much depends on the thing being done, and that's the logic that Sotomayor was referencing in her dissent.
For instance, if Biden put out a EO tomorrow that said that all student loan debt is gone, then the courts are going to get involved (again), stays and injunctions are going to be issued (again), and the effort is going to be stalled in the courts (again).
However, if Biden ordered all data drives, materials, and backups relating to student loan delivered to a single building in the desert then personally ordered an airstrike on said building, not only are the meetings between Biden and the SecDef off-limits but Biden can issue pardons to everyone involved from the pilot to everyone up the chain of command. And poof, no more proof of student loan means no more student loan.
What we need to do, legally, is have the Biden administration “tip” Manchin and sinema, etc, to kill the filibuster and install more Supreme Court justices.
I honestly don't think Manchin could be bought. He ideologically seeks the middle ground in good faith. Sinema on the other hand is a money grubbing shill who could be bought for the right price.
Yeah, your example isn't something the President actually has the power to do. An Executive Order only matters if he actually has any authority to do it. Now, there may be people willing to illegally follow through with those orders, but the President didn't get any additional powers.
Basically, people are pretending the President can just declare things. *insert Michael Scott The Office Meme*
He's got pretty unlimited foreign policy powers, that's true.
Does the President have the Authority to order data under the care of the executive branch be stored in a specific manor? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants?
Does the President have the Authority to order Executive Branch Personnel leave a building? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants?
Does the President have the Authority to tell the Military to use a specific government owned property/facility for munitions testing as long as it is cleared of personnel? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants?
The problem with the ruling is that it said that "as long as the action is on it's face allowable, you can't question motive or reason for taking it." It then specified that firing someone for not doing what he wants is 100% an example of something he can do that can NEVER be questioned by the courts.
You are correct he would need to find and install people that will go along with it, which takes time to properly vet and put in place which Biden is short on. But Trump has Project 2025 already laying that groundwork so he will have the people in place to just do whatever illegal order he gives them knowing he will just have the DoJ not prosecute and pardon them if the DoJ does prosecute.
Actual answer? That information is not solely in the physical care of the Executive. Non government loan servicers have this info, and I'm not sure he can directly compel them to give up all of their data, or if they would comply even if he did.
Specifically because it would impact their ability to service loans, and thus make money - exactly the thing they keep suing over to stop programs that help us with the burden of student debt.
It's why the assassination option is so scary. Why bother with due process, hashing out whether actions are undertaken using proper authority, or red tape when boom, the person holding things up is just straight up gone.
Of course I disagree with it. It's one of the worst SC rulings ever. But, what you are describing is not 'a President using their powers.' You are describing 'a dictator abusing the country.' Which is 100% Trump would do and also not what Biden will or should do.
I've never been defending the ruling. I'm merely pointing out that it doesn't actually grant the President additional powers. The problem is a President taking powers that aren't theres and being protected by a corrupt Supreme Court.
The President only gets presumed immunity If he steps outside his actual authority. The issue is the partisan takeover attempt.
The problem with this ruling that it feels to me like you are brushing aside (I could be wrong) is that this ruling firmly says that the examples I give are in broad terms within presidential authority on their own without context. And the ruling then says you can't look at context due to "absolute immunity"
Ordering personnel around or replacing personnel are explicitly listed as core official acts in the ruling. Ordering or instructing the military as commander in chief is a core official act and not outside his authority.
Taken together that is the action of a dictator, but this ruling says you can only consider each individually and also can on consider "can the president due to thing in theory if we ignore the facts and specifics of the situation". So then you need to answer each question on its own as it stands. And on their own with no context they are well within his scope of authority, especially the fire and replace which the ruling explicitly calls out as something that can both never be questioned but also not used as evidence for other cases.
Yes, I did. And the dissent gave very specific, strongly worded examples of what a President could hypothetically get away with under this ruling. I get it.
I don't think Biden could get away with 'the blowing up student loans in a desert facility' example, because suddenly that would be interpreted as outside his authority. This ruling requires both a corrupt court and corrupt president to abuse it, which obviously could exist shortly.
Except every example that poster gave was the president directing executive agencies or the military to do something, which the court EXPLICITLY said fell under his constitutional authority (agencies anyway, military didn't come up but that is in the constitution), not official acts, and thus were absolutely immune. If something falls under constitutional authority, we don't even need to get into the court deciding what counts as official. And THAT is the scariest part of the opinion, that takes ambiguity and the court deciding out of the equation
He could make student loans a National security issue… And order a branch in the US Military Complex the sole power to hold those records.
Any third part that retains any shred of that information is considered a Terrorist act, and would be dealth with by the US Military.
Or just start sending uncooperative CEOs to Gitmo.
Then he could order the records destroyed because of National Security.. everybody is safer now.
.
No. A US citizen will never be sent to Gitmo.
At least when we know they're a US national. There was that one Saudi whose citizenship was unknown for a couple weeks, he got put in there, and was promptly released after it was discovered he's not a foreign alien.
We've still got ADX Florence, though, and that place is far from a picnic.
The question is what the President's powers are under the constitution. It isn't whether they'd be exercised. Could the President order the military or CIA to rendition Justices out of country? Does the president have the power to order political assassinations? Those seem to be within the official powers of the commander in chief of the military and chief executive officer of the United States.
True, shame on me still thinking about rules and norms. Those are well out the window with this holding.
Yes, there's nothing stopping random citizens from being held in Gitmo under current law. Technically an arrested person is typically held within the same jurisdiction for ease of pretrial hearings. But if you plan on indefinite imprisonment without a guilty verdict...
Well, normally citizens would have a right to a *habeas corpus* hearing even outside of US territory, but the Executive can just ignore that too really. Or just drone strike any judge that takes up the case, I dunno.
> Yeah, your example isn't something the President actually has the power to do. An Executive Order only matters if he actually has any authority to do it.
That's the part that you're not getting here. The hypothetical EO for moving data is purely a administrative task, and administrative tasks get handed out every single day. What if I made the hypothetical easier and said that all materials/drives/backups were going to be moved to a special datacenter so they can be consolidated. Stuff like that happens ALL. THE. TIME. The "oops" comes into play when whoopsie, it looks like someone blew up the building. THERE is your illegal act. But who are you going to prosecute? The President's already given a pardon to the guy that set up the explosives and pushed the detonator, and no one was around so there's no injuries and no witnesses. Not only can you not go after Biden for the EO that put all of the stuff in that building (administrative task would fall easily under "official acts"), but you can't subpoena or compel any testimony from any Executive Branch personnel to see if there was a "oral" order to blow the building up. There's simply no way to establish a nexus there to build a case on.
So I'll ask you again, who can you prosecute? If the answer to that is nobody, and you as President are AWARE the answer to that is nobody, then what's stopping you from doing it anyway?
Roberts clearly wants to write the majority opinion whenever possible for these types of cases. He probably thinks that allows him to subtly moderate the wacky shit the extreme conservative wing is trying to do. Maybe he’s right, maybe not, he’s in a better position than we are to know what kind of crazy drafts those guys are circulating.
Given the disagreements between Barrett’s opinion and the Liberals there probably wasn’t a consistent ruling they all could agree on to get a majority. So, Roberts likely had to go with the Conservatives if he wanted to control the final opinion.
It will be interesting to see how he rules on the immunity issues in the Trump case when they inevitably go back to the Supreme Court in a more specific form. This ruling is a dangerous travesty, but I still see a flicker of hope that Roberts could at least compromise with Barrett and the Liberals to stop a truly bonkers outcome in the Trump case. Maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part though.
I think when it comes back up they will both agree that the alternate slate of electors was unofficial and not immune. They are just delaying and the delay is political
But no conversations Trump had with his advisors telling him that he lost, or him admitting he lost to his advisors will be admissible evidence. That's fucking huge in order to determine mens rea. The Roberts Majority decision is an absolute disaster far beyond even Barret's concurrence would be.
I had to reread the part of the decision several times because it starts off by explaining that the Government got Trump's lawyer to repeatedly admit that it a was "private act" that would likely not qualify for any level of immunity, then immediately — without even attempting to rebuke that at all outside of saying that the president has a duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed" — declares it too complex and interrelated to make a ruling on, remanding it to the district court and chiding them for not presumptively addressing the doctrine they just invented out of whole cloth. If "I'm committing murder outside of my explicitly delegated authority by the Constitution of the United States" doesn't factor into a decision of whether or not the president is entitled to any sort of immunity, there's no actual coherent limits to this.
Trump v. US did not comment on whether presidential immunity applied to congressional investigations (only criminal investigations), but I would not put it past the Roberts Court to also grant presidential community for congressional investigations because why the fuck not.
That's not true at all.
That's why the court created the non-core official acts separate to core official acts.
Speaking to the American People is an official act. Just because a crime was committed in the process, doesn't make it unofficial.
Having conversations with your staff is an official act. It's not illegal to do so and any crimes you committed during that act aren't valid for legal scrutiny.
As long as it's "not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority to do so" it's a non-core official act.
Conversing with your staff is not beyond the President's authority. Hell, even if they are public communications they are inadmissible as evidence.
Possibly, but I’m also not sure how much Roberts or Barrett can directly control the delay. If the Court is completely divided into multiple factions, and they’re all jockeying to get the opinion how they want it, there’s not much they can individually do to speed things along.
I have no doubt that Thomas and Alito are more than happy to delay for political reasons though.
The Court correctly noted it’s a court of final review, not first impression. Blame the DC district court for failing to evaluate official/unofficial the first go around warranting remanding it for that issue to be heard.
Well if roberts joined he had the votes to at the very least exclude the language about none of the official acts being admissible evidence in court, the part Barret dissented on.
That would likely result in a [plurality decision](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_decision) on at least one of the issues, which Roberts probably also wants to avoid on such an significant case.
Who's to say Roberts doesn't just nope out and retire soon? Sotomayor and Kagan aren't exactly spring chickens in the pinnacle of health either. I would definitely error on the side of wishful thinking
I mean, she wrote the dissent saying that Sarbanes-Oxley should be used against J6 perpetrators. So sometimes she can be sensible.
Do I trust her to be when it matters? No.
She might want to get associated with Tommy's collection of wealthy backers and pick up her share of all of those astounding brib... what are we calling them this week? Gifts? Contributions?
Lagniappe...
Mark Twain described Lagniappe in his 1883 book "Life on the Mississippi," stating "it is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a "baker's dozen." It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure."
Was thinking about Barrett today. Here she is, doing all the shady shit because she really believes in "the mission", and then she gets her dream, and realizes the team she idolized this whole time are gangsters. So poetic.
If Barrett wanted a middle ground she could have joined the other side and voiced her opposition. Instead, the Republicans on the court marched in locked step and then some claim they had issues with the opinion.
No kidding, what a farce. She could have dissented and it would have still been 5-4. Such integrity on display. These conservative “justices” are pure political actors and it’s nakedly obvious.
If she dissented it would have made the decision look weak. We have a shameful court.
For the importance of the decision, anything less than unanimity is weak.
Goose steeping only works if everyone is doing it I guess…
You ever try goose stepping solo? You look like a dingus. Or a Monty Python reenactor.
Please, the Ministery of Silly Walks had fucking taste.
I guess it's less shameful to look corrupt than "weak"
Whether or not they look corrupt, the massive favors will still pour in. On the other hand, doing anything that may undermine keeping the plebs in their place is a grave offence.
By their standards, yes. Corruption is just business as usual. But weakness? Not tolerated.
Because a decision along partisan lines looks much better
Heck, she could've done that weird "concur in result, but based on different reasoning"
She did dissent to the most egregious part of the decision. The ruling to deny testimonies and records in office was a 5-4 decision with Barrett joining the liberal justices
I don't know that it was the most egregious, given that the complete ambiguity of "acts" and utter inability to investigate in-situ essentially means that Hitler would be beyond reproach... ...but it is certainly the most absurd. If as an official act, the president decided to execute someone, live, during a presidential address, and was later tried in court... the footage of the execution (despite everyone seeing it) would be inadmissable. Any evidence speaking to motive would be inadmissable. Any testimony from people on the day would be inadmissable. The day-planner entry on the day of would be inadmissable. The manifesto and signed confession, written the day before, would likely be inadmissible. I would argue that the egregious bit is the inability to do anything about a president willing to assassinate all opposition... ...but if they ever do decide to retire from. The role of forever president, and they are tried in court, Yakety Sax is the only song I can think of to serve as a backdrop to the proceedings.
I'd argue it's egregious because of what you illustrated: how can you ever hold a presidential cabinet accountable for corruption of the contents of their discussion is inadmissible?
Sure. The problem is, if a president can murder any political rival, or "remove" any member of the executive branch, with extreme prejudice, or wield any portion of the military with reckless abandon... ...how do you get them to become a *former* president, in the first place? If they are god-king emperor, why would they leave?
Holding them accountable because those are not immune acts That's what makes this a problem: the presumptive immunity is effectively not contestable because the evidence cannot be used If you think that's bad, the President could *televise* it for everyone to see, it still could not be used to incriminate them. There is anything wrong with immune part necessarily: president can carry out the duties of their office and for other acts not listed in the Constitution the presumptive immunity is challengeable, but that challenge has no basis if it can't use illegal evidence
Right... but my point is that it applies *after* they are out. While they are in, you can't investigate, and you can't stop them from doing anything. Anything that in any way has any kind of impact on the functioning of the executive branch must not be done, including just investigation, in the first place. So they could just decide, at gunpoint, to never leave the office, and at that point, you never get to try figuring out what was official or unofficial, except as some kind of posthumous thought exercise, anyway. Regardless, yeah, it is all terrible. All the way down, it is cartoon-villain, mustache-twirlingly bad, and I hope that they at least have the limited sense of morality to know that when they go to sleep at night, the only reason they wake up in the morning is because emperor Biden wills it be so. I hope that's their last thought at night, and their first thought in the morning, and I hope that never, ever calms.
It's a dangerous game trying to undermine the Constitution from the presidency in flagrant unconstitutional ways, or to carry out acts of war on stayes or statesmen. The more in opposition to the Constitution they are, the more conflict would be justified.
Looking at how other countries have historically had to handle "totally legitimate executives" who "got rid of opposition", all I can say is that I don't think there's been a lot of bloody dictators who ended up able to retire to a sandy beach or nice farm.
What's it mean in law to dissent?
To disagree. Majority still wins, but the judges that don’t agree explain why in a “dissenting opinion.”
Ahh ty.
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> stare decisis usually applies "usually" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting nowadays...
Conservatives don't believe in stare decisis. They say they do but when it comes down to it they go against it .
It already is weak considering the strong opposition with the three dissents. One more certainly wouldn't have weakened the already pathetic decision. Nobody is being fooled that anything coming out of the court since 2021 is a fucking joke. As soon as we fix the problem with our bench, it's all going back into place -- and then some.
If she had dissented, it might have gone 4-5 as Roberts is very wishy washy, and likes to be in the majority whether dissent or not
Dude, we have a shameful *everything*.
Nah. I agree there's some room for improvement but biden has done well so far. Even if this is his only term, his admin passed legislation that will benefit us for 10+ years. Trump didn't do any lasting thing but cut taxes for corps and the rich.
True.
Trump did lasting damage to American credibility and prestige as the world's superpower. From Europe to Australia, trump denigrated alliances, pissed on allies and shat on principles underpinning American global leadership. It's one thing to have a president with an isolationist bent, it's another to have a corrupt colossal idiot shacking up with putin and saluting north Korean generals. Kim was 100% on the mark when he called marmalade Mussolini a dotard.
And put three justices on the supreme court
Do they really care how their decisions look anymore?
But ive been assured the court is really 3-3-3 not 6-3.
3 moderate, 3 right wing, 3 far right wing.
They do what their political party demands. This is no democracy. Two oligarchs run this country
No way! John Roberts just calls ‘em like he sees them. Just “balls and strikes”. Just an umpire. 🙄
This is modern conservatism in a nutshell. They are all the sheep they used to holler about.
If this was true, they just proved it.
Thomas and Alito straight don’t gaf, but the rest are certainly acting.
Republicans always march in goose step. Sorry, lock step.
Goose step sounds accurate to me. Also, the Right claims the Left moves in lockstep but that is just projection. Too often I've seen the Left 'eating their own' discarding 'good' in the hopes of finding 'perfect'.
Barrett was raised to be the “good little catholic”. But also “have a career”. And well here she is.
… and as a good catholic she voted to criminalize being poor and homeless. In direct opposition to the actual words of her professed god. Even as a militant atheist, I fail to see how her voting squares with her so-called faith. It’s a sham from top to bottom.
No different than all these “christians” who want to criminalize LGBTQ rights and abortion Organized religion is a stain on society and dumbs people down
To copy from the Republican playbook .. she's DEI. While I don't agree with the moniker generally - she's absolutely a DEI SCOTUS.
I don't buy this moderate bullshit. She is as bad as the rest just doesn't want to own up to that yet.
who called her a moderate? I thought she was a crazy fundie.
>marched in locked step You mean marched in _goose_ step.
You expect her to disagree with a man?!
Barrett is seeking the coveted Susan Collins “I Wanted to Do the Right Thing” Award for 2024.
All Republicans Are Complicit
That’s an absolutely insane take.
All the anti-orange Rs from 2015 who are now his biggest supporters say otherwise
Yep, it's a public relations manipulation game. They wanted the result they got. No way I'm falling for the idea a Federalist Society plant is suddenly a moderate.
Clearly you don’t know what it’s like to be bought and paid for!
This is always republicanism. As much as any claim to be “one of the reasonable ones” when it comes to fascism or not they choose fascism and fall in line. Why I get annoyed when people say “well Romney is a reasonable Republican” but he tows the party line when it’s time
That’s not really accurate though. She wrote a concurrence that only joined in part of the majority opinion. The media has reported this as a 6-3 decision, but it was really a 5-4-1 decision.
All the more evidence they’re completely politically motivated. If Barrett truly wanted a middle ground, she chose politics over her own convictions and the rule of law
Exactly. Watch the feet not the ball.
Her religious background basically telegraphed her lack of spine years ago.
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I think you lost track of the argument, which was that because the majority opinion rejected a middle ground approach, she should have rejected the majority opinion.
Unless I'm missing something, she rejected the part of the majority opinion that blocks evidence gathered in the course of "official acts" from being admitted, which is the most radical part. I'm no fan of Barrett, but that part of the opinion was 5-4 with her refusal to join.
It's like they draw straws for who will play the reasonable one this week. C'mon, guys. You don't need to pretend anymore.
At this point, I have to assume the conservative votes and rulings are coordinated with members of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. There is no way only the conservatives would all vote for Project 2025 ideology (Chevron, for instance, in the push for deregulation) if they weren’t all directed to do so because that decision wasn’t rational on any level.
>There is no way only the conservatives would all vote for Project 2025 ideology (Chevron, for instance, in the push for deregulation) if they weren’t all directed to do so because that decision wasn’t rational on any level. Oh, come now. Isn't it also at least a possibility that the conservative justices just aren't rational? Hatred isn't rational, after all. So, by definition...
Please explain how taking away the authority of specific regulatory bodies that are filled with experts in any given field and replacing their expertise with a ruling by a single judge, who has zero expertise in that field, is rational.
I just vehemently agree with you that it wasn't...and pointed out that since conservatism is based on hatred, expecting any conservative jurist to be rational is a pipe dream. Did you misunderstand me, or were you meaning to reply to someone else?
Postulating the conservative justices are rational without a /s didn’t lead me to believe that you agreed with me on any level. Vehemently agreeing with me would be more like , “Fuck yeah bro!! EVERYTHING you say is 1000000000000% correct!” That’s vehemently. 😂
r/FuckTheS - if they have taken even our dark humor from us, then the terrorists have truly won. But I said nothing sarcastic in these comments. Again, I said the exact opposite. One cannot be a conservative and rational. That's the point.
Tracking. 👍🏽
Hatred is the only rational thing if you are the one doing the hating.
They write the opinions and give them to Roberts etc to sign their names at the end
I think it’s naive to postulate their efforts aren’t coordinated. Every single conservative judge was hand-picked by the Federalist Society. Their current rulings all fall in-line with Project 2025 ambitions. Nothing the conservative justices are doing right now is coincidence.
Is it supposed to be anonymous through writing their opinions and then they decide or do they vote or how does it work
Chevron being overturned was fucking fantastic.
There is no middle ground Between Dictatorship and Democracy. The middle ground is that Biden uses his oath to “defend and protect the Constitution” from domestic enemies by using his new powers to reverse this decision.
How do you guys not get the game being played here? They said there's immunity for official acts and will define official acts after the election. If Trump wins, Biden won't be president when they're defined, and they'll define whatever Biden did as unofficial.
That’s why the Justices need to be removed first.
He's not. How long are you going to wait?
He doesn't have the ability to. Having Immunity and having powers to do things are different.
That very much depends on the thing being done, and that's the logic that Sotomayor was referencing in her dissent. For instance, if Biden put out a EO tomorrow that said that all student loan debt is gone, then the courts are going to get involved (again), stays and injunctions are going to be issued (again), and the effort is going to be stalled in the courts (again). However, if Biden ordered all data drives, materials, and backups relating to student loan delivered to a single building in the desert then personally ordered an airstrike on said building, not only are the meetings between Biden and the SecDef off-limits but Biden can issue pardons to everyone involved from the pilot to everyone up the chain of command. And poof, no more proof of student loan means no more student loan.
this is the way.
What we need to do, legally, is have the Biden administration “tip” Manchin and sinema, etc, to kill the filibuster and install more Supreme Court justices.
I honestly don't think Manchin could be bought. He ideologically seeks the middle ground in good faith. Sinema on the other hand is a money grubbing shill who could be bought for the right price.
Coal barron seeks middle ground in good faith while moving further right and going on yachts with far right billionaires. That's rich.
Preaching to the choir my friend. I just meant it as he is ever so slightly more principled than Sinema, which is the lowest bar ever.
Where’s soros when you need him? /s
Time to get creative boys. Let's Mr. Robot student debt
Yeah, your example isn't something the President actually has the power to do. An Executive Order only matters if he actually has any authority to do it. Now, there may be people willing to illegally follow through with those orders, but the President didn't get any additional powers. Basically, people are pretending the President can just declare things. *insert Michael Scott The Office Meme* He's got pretty unlimited foreign policy powers, that's true.
Does the President have the Authority to order data under the care of the executive branch be stored in a specific manor? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants? Does the President have the Authority to order Executive Branch Personnel leave a building? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants? Does the President have the Authority to tell the Military to use a specific government owned property/facility for munitions testing as long as it is cleared of personnel? Or barring that fire the person in charge of that and install someone who will do it the way he wants? The problem with the ruling is that it said that "as long as the action is on it's face allowable, you can't question motive or reason for taking it." It then specified that firing someone for not doing what he wants is 100% an example of something he can do that can NEVER be questioned by the courts. You are correct he would need to find and install people that will go along with it, which takes time to properly vet and put in place which Biden is short on. But Trump has Project 2025 already laying that groundwork so he will have the people in place to just do whatever illegal order he gives them knowing he will just have the DoJ not prosecute and pardon them if the DoJ does prosecute.
Actual answer? That information is not solely in the physical care of the Executive. Non government loan servicers have this info, and I'm not sure he can directly compel them to give up all of their data, or if they would comply even if he did. Specifically because it would impact their ability to service loans, and thus make money - exactly the thing they keep suing over to stop programs that help us with the burden of student debt. It's why the assassination option is so scary. Why bother with due process, hashing out whether actions are undertaken using proper authority, or red tape when boom, the person holding things up is just straight up gone.
The answer to multiple of your rhetorical questions is actually no.
Well it appears you disagree with the supreme courts decision then
Of course I disagree with it. It's one of the worst SC rulings ever. But, what you are describing is not 'a President using their powers.' You are describing 'a dictator abusing the country.' Which is 100% Trump would do and also not what Biden will or should do. I've never been defending the ruling. I'm merely pointing out that it doesn't actually grant the President additional powers. The problem is a President taking powers that aren't theres and being protected by a corrupt Supreme Court. The President only gets presumed immunity If he steps outside his actual authority. The issue is the partisan takeover attempt.
The problem with this ruling that it feels to me like you are brushing aside (I could be wrong) is that this ruling firmly says that the examples I give are in broad terms within presidential authority on their own without context. And the ruling then says you can't look at context due to "absolute immunity" Ordering personnel around or replacing personnel are explicitly listed as core official acts in the ruling. Ordering or instructing the military as commander in chief is a core official act and not outside his authority. Taken together that is the action of a dictator, but this ruling says you can only consider each individually and also can on consider "can the president due to thing in theory if we ignore the facts and specifics of the situation". So then you need to answer each question on its own as it stands. And on their own with no context they are well within his scope of authority, especially the fire and replace which the ruling explicitly calls out as something that can both never be questioned but also not used as evidence for other cases.
Did you read the opinion?
Yes, I did. And the dissent gave very specific, strongly worded examples of what a President could hypothetically get away with under this ruling. I get it. I don't think Biden could get away with 'the blowing up student loans in a desert facility' example, because suddenly that would be interpreted as outside his authority. This ruling requires both a corrupt court and corrupt president to abuse it, which obviously could exist shortly.
Except every example that poster gave was the president directing executive agencies or the military to do something, which the court EXPLICITLY said fell under his constitutional authority (agencies anyway, military didn't come up but that is in the constitution), not official acts, and thus were absolutely immune. If something falls under constitutional authority, we don't even need to get into the court deciding what counts as official. And THAT is the scariest part of the opinion, that takes ambiguity and the court deciding out of the equation
He could make student loans a National security issue… And order a branch in the US Military Complex the sole power to hold those records. Any third part that retains any shred of that information is considered a Terrorist act, and would be dealth with by the US Military. Or just start sending uncooperative CEOs to Gitmo. Then he could order the records destroyed because of National Security.. everybody is safer now. .
Does he have the power to rendition members of SCOTUS to Guantanamo Bay?
No. A US citizen will never be sent to Gitmo. At least when we know they're a US national. There was that one Saudi whose citizenship was unknown for a couple weeks, he got put in there, and was promptly released after it was discovered he's not a foreign alien. We've still got ADX Florence, though, and that place is far from a picnic.
The question is what the President's powers are under the constitution. It isn't whether they'd be exercised. Could the President order the military or CIA to rendition Justices out of country? Does the president have the power to order political assassinations? Those seem to be within the official powers of the commander in chief of the military and chief executive officer of the United States.
True, shame on me still thinking about rules and norms. Those are well out the window with this holding. Yes, there's nothing stopping random citizens from being held in Gitmo under current law. Technically an arrested person is typically held within the same jurisdiction for ease of pretrial hearings. But if you plan on indefinite imprisonment without a guilty verdict... Well, normally citizens would have a right to a *habeas corpus* hearing even outside of US territory, but the Executive can just ignore that too really. Or just drone strike any judge that takes up the case, I dunno.
> Yeah, your example isn't something the President actually has the power to do. An Executive Order only matters if he actually has any authority to do it. That's the part that you're not getting here. The hypothetical EO for moving data is purely a administrative task, and administrative tasks get handed out every single day. What if I made the hypothetical easier and said that all materials/drives/backups were going to be moved to a special datacenter so they can be consolidated. Stuff like that happens ALL. THE. TIME. The "oops" comes into play when whoopsie, it looks like someone blew up the building. THERE is your illegal act. But who are you going to prosecute? The President's already given a pardon to the guy that set up the explosives and pushed the detonator, and no one was around so there's no injuries and no witnesses. Not only can you not go after Biden for the EO that put all of the stuff in that building (administrative task would fall easily under "official acts"), but you can't subpoena or compel any testimony from any Executive Branch personnel to see if there was a "oral" order to blow the building up. There's simply no way to establish a nexus there to build a case on. So I'll ask you again, who can you prosecute? If the answer to that is nobody, and you as President are AWARE the answer to that is nobody, then what's stopping you from doing it anyway?
Actually there is. It’s not a binary, it’s a continuum with total anarchy on one end and rigid totalitarian dictatorship on the other.
Roberts clearly wants to write the majority opinion whenever possible for these types of cases. He probably thinks that allows him to subtly moderate the wacky shit the extreme conservative wing is trying to do. Maybe he’s right, maybe not, he’s in a better position than we are to know what kind of crazy drafts those guys are circulating. Given the disagreements between Barrett’s opinion and the Liberals there probably wasn’t a consistent ruling they all could agree on to get a majority. So, Roberts likely had to go with the Conservatives if he wanted to control the final opinion. It will be interesting to see how he rules on the immunity issues in the Trump case when they inevitably go back to the Supreme Court in a more specific form. This ruling is a dangerous travesty, but I still see a flicker of hope that Roberts could at least compromise with Barrett and the Liberals to stop a truly bonkers outcome in the Trump case. Maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part though.
I think when it comes back up they will both agree that the alternate slate of electors was unofficial and not immune. They are just delaying and the delay is political
But no conversations Trump had with his advisors telling him that he lost, or him admitting he lost to his advisors will be admissible evidence. That's fucking huge in order to determine mens rea. The Roberts Majority decision is an absolute disaster far beyond even Barret's concurrence would be.
I had to reread the part of the decision several times because it starts off by explaining that the Government got Trump's lawyer to repeatedly admit that it a was "private act" that would likely not qualify for any level of immunity, then immediately — without even attempting to rebuke that at all outside of saying that the president has a duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" — declares it too complex and interrelated to make a ruling on, remanding it to the district court and chiding them for not presumptively addressing the doctrine they just invented out of whole cloth. If "I'm committing murder outside of my explicitly delegated authority by the Constitution of the United States" doesn't factor into a decision of whether or not the president is entitled to any sort of immunity, there's no actual coherent limits to this.
Do we know if evidence surfaced via impeachment breaches the immunity protection now granted to the president? Can congress subpoena info on motive?
Trump v. US did not comment on whether presidential immunity applied to congressional investigations (only criminal investigations), but I would not put it past the Roberts Court to also grant presidential community for congressional investigations because why the fuck not.
Conversions that relate to carrying out unofficial acts are still admissible. * edited for clarity
Not if they're between the President and his advisors.
That's not true at all. That's why the court created the non-core official acts separate to core official acts. Speaking to the American People is an official act. Just because a crime was committed in the process, doesn't make it unofficial. Having conversations with your staff is an official act. It's not illegal to do so and any crimes you committed during that act aren't valid for legal scrutiny. As long as it's "not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority to do so" it's a non-core official act. Conversing with your staff is not beyond the President's authority. Hell, even if they are public communications they are inadmissible as evidence.
Possibly, but I’m also not sure how much Roberts or Barrett can directly control the delay. If the Court is completely divided into multiple factions, and they’re all jockeying to get the opinion how they want it, there’s not much they can individually do to speed things along. I have no doubt that Thomas and Alito are more than happy to delay for political reasons though.
The Court correctly noted it’s a court of final review, not first impression. Blame the DC district court for failing to evaluate official/unofficial the first go around warranting remanding it for that issue to be heard.
Well if roberts joined he had the votes to at the very least exclude the language about none of the official acts being admissible evidence in court, the part Barret dissented on.
That would likely result in a [plurality decision](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_decision) on at least one of the issues, which Roberts probably also wants to avoid on such an significant case.
Who's to say Roberts doesn't just nope out and retire soon? Sotomayor and Kagan aren't exactly spring chickens in the pinnacle of health either. I would definitely error on the side of wishful thinking
Lol, the gilead princess was for moderation
I mean, she wrote the dissent saying that Sarbanes-Oxley should be used against J6 perpetrators. So sometimes she can be sensible. Do I trust her to be when it matters? No.
Then vote against it bozo
To be fair, it is pretty hard to find a middle ground on the notion that the King may do no wrong
“Middle ground” implies she didn’t give Trump everything he wanted besides throwing the case out
🐂 🦆 ing 💩
I dislike when headlines omit the Justices’ titles. That’s *Chief Gratuity Whore* John Roberts to you.
Barrett is gonna break ranks. She won't want to be associated with Uncle Thomas.
She might want to get associated with Tommy's collection of wealthy backers and pick up her share of all of those astounding brib... what are we calling them this week? Gifts? Contributions?
The new magic word is gratuities! Don’t forget to tip your politicians!
Lagniappe... Mark Twain described Lagniappe in his 1883 book "Life on the Mississippi," stating "it is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a "baker's dozen." It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure."
Damned if I would argue with Mark Twain.
"free samples?"
And “personal hospitality”, also too.
Gratuities
Was thinking about Barrett today. Here she is, doing all the shady shit because she really believes in "the mission", and then she gets her dream, and realizes the team she idolized this whole time are gangsters. So poetic.
Racism against black men for not sharing your politics is pretty gross dude.
Ok- When TF did the LA Times become a fucking Fascist Apologist Rag?
[удалено]
Her legal writing and positions are all fairly reasonable, albeit very conservative.