Is anyone else highly concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that the POTUS is immune from criminal liability?
Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.
So like, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I've been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.
The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.
I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?
The Republican party is engaged in another coup
This isn't a Democrat vs Republican issue. Obama drone strike killed an American without due process. This is an authoritarian vs libertarian issue.
This is absolutely a GOP issue. They're the ones doing all of this and also the only ones pushing to go further. The example you used isn't even close to the same league as what's being discussed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awlaki
Was it fucked up the kid got killed by a CIA-ordered air strike? Absolutely. But it's not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be and is a far cry different than what is now possible for a US president to do based on the SCOTUS ruling last week.
But Biden could open a can of whoop-ass right now if he wanted to.
Possibly. The SCOTUS ruling essentially kicked it down to lower courts to decide what's an official act or not. Trump installed a ton of judges across the country to various federal courts. It could easily backfire on Biden if he tried anything.
Who cares? Let ‘em all have it! They certainly don’t care.
That's my point. If it isn't good when this power is available to the president if you don't like then (or anyone in government for that matter) then they shouldn't have that power. This is absolutely about removing power from the authorities.
Your first sentence was right. This ISN'T democrat vs republican issue.
But the rest of your message is straight hot garbage.
This is a "united states as it always has operated, republican or democrat, or other parties that existed in the past" vs "united states becoming facist" issue.
https://www.aclu.org/video/aclu-ccr-lawsuit-american-boy-killed-us-drone-strike
Ah yes, totally comparable to a president assassinating his political rival on US soil. Great comment!
Political rival doesn't mean anything. This ruling means any president will get away with it and we'll likely need a constitutional amendment to fix. Hopefully ending qualified immunity would eliminate it.
Any president can get away with it, but only one party's candidates will actually do it.
The party that put these fascist judges on the bench will do it, in case that wasn't obvious.
If you think it's the Democrats that'll fix it, I have a bridge to sell you.
I didn't say anything about them fixing it, just not abusing it.
That's still a naive take. It's one thing I've noticed in this world is that most everyone is fine with authoritarianism so long as it's their team/side/tribe/party calling the shots. It's still giving power to people that shouldn't have it and all it accomplishes is that they can and will step harder on you and keep you under their boot.
The Dems and their constituents are not ok with this power for the president.
I just made a comment as a contrast to the Republicans who stacked the courts to get this decision so they could abuse it.
The only people who are ok with this are the Republicans.
Democrats made absolutely no noise when presidents of their party made powerful (IMHO unconstitutional) executive orders the last biggest being the drone strike ordered by Obama that killed an American without due process.
You can bellyache about this court, but there was no noise from Democrats when the Warren and Burger courts legislated from the bench and ignored precedent for most of last century.
My point is when Democrats do it, Republicans gripe about it but secretly like having that power when they get on office, and when Republicans do it, Democrats will gripe but will use that same power when they get in office. If you want real change vote for people that opposed it when both parties did it.
Stop it. Now is not the time. You’re intentionally failing to recognize that we are, in a very real and imminent sense, staring the possible collapse of democracy in the US in the face.