This is the only way to change that. I don't have much hope that it'll pass, though.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024
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But SCOTUS can choose how to interpret this amendment however they choose.
And a President can fire them. Or more. Because they said he could.
What’s he waiting for then?
He's too virtuous. He hasn't processed that anything he does is legal.
So he leads be example. Or something.
Maybe someone should explain it to him before 4 PM?
It feels so Game of Thrones-ish. Democrats are going to act all high and mighty and virtuous, while Republicans are just going to be like Cersei Lannister, "Is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark? A piece of paper?" Republicans will run them through and sleep well knowing they won, without a guilty conscience. The President should be acting now to protect the country, not waiting for the wolves to get into the hen house and then wringing their hands that there was nothing they could do about it.
That's pretty much it. Republicans are bring out the spiked maces and Dems are just trying to fisticuff they're way out of it. Because virtue.
Not even fisticuffs. They're filing a motion to discourage mace spikes over a certain length.
Pending the approval of some unelected clerk rando with only symbolic authority, of course.
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Being free from the consequences of your actions does not give you absolute power and authority. He can't fire them, because he never had that power. What he can do is have them swatted and kill them in official capacity, although he can still be impeached.
Trump signed an executive order and made much of the executive branch fire-able. Go far enough and that influence can turn into control over other parts of the government.
There's a path to effective termination.
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Under the new authority they’ve granted him, he can also “fire” them, if you get my meaning.
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Pass? The Republican controlled House won't even bring it up for a vote!
It’s the only legislative way to change that.
There is a way that Biden could change that completely unilaterally, but he’s not going to do it.
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America has no king. America needs no king.
"Instead of Sleepy Joe, you would have a King, not pale but orange and terrible as the inflation rate! Tempestuous as a 6 year-old, and stronger than the laws of the earth! All shall love me and covfefe!"
--Trump
Okay Donadriel, let's get you back to your room and change your diapie.
Dont forget to give him his AI response phone, you know he is a lot more manageable when he think gets to complain to a bunch of people.
Here's the problem with a constitutional amendment:
You will never, ever get a single politician to vote for an amendment specifically designed to weaken the power of their own party leader. No Republican will ever vote for this, especially right now when there's so much momentum going Trump's way. It. Will. Never. Happen.
I have a better chance of Taylor Swift dumping her boyfriend and declaring her undying love for me during her next concert than a single Republican voting in favor of this. This is performance and nothing more.
The only realistic path to reversing this is:
- Electing Biden or whoever the Dem nominee is in November.
- Hope that Thomas and Alito die, retire, get abducted by aliens, or whatever during Biden's term so Biden can replace them with two liberal judges, giving liberals a 5-4 majority.
- Bring a case to the court (I don't know who would have standing to bring such a case, but...) to give the Supreme Court the opportunity to reverse that decision.
Rinse and repeat for every bad decision this half-baked court has made.
This is it. That is the only path. Any other attempt to fix these problems either require a constitutional amendment no GOP politician or governor would ever vote for or ratify or can simply be struck down by the very Supreme Court that caused this mess in the first place.
There’s also the malicious compliance path (which, to be fair, would also have more than its fair share of dire complications and implications, but it would at least address the immediate and imminent threat of a fascist takeover in 4 months).
But Biden is 100% not going to do that.
About the standing thing: the beauty is the current Supreme Court has eliminated that as a real requirement, so you can just have someone sue for theoretical harm and be all good.
This is it. That is the only path.
You don't need Republicans to expand the court. Just saying. It's not the ONLY path.
There's also having a Democrat abuse this in a way that is directly a danger to GOP politicians and using Biden as a sacrificial lamb. Something like ordering the military to execute several members of Congress and SCOTUS justices and then pardoning them.
But let's be fair, the underlying argument they're using is one meant to do things like not make the president guilty of murder for anyone killed by the military or in action under the military, not to protect Trump from conspiring to do crimes with people in his admin.
I agree but there is another path: if Democrats win both houses of Congress and the President, and Senate Democrats agree to blow up the filibuster, they can pack the court whenever they want.
I am of the opinion they should slam the Court up to 11 right away, then 13 in time for the 2026 court term. Then go to Republicans and say "You can let us put four 40-ish Liberals on the Court for lifetime appointments, and gamble on getting your own trifecta to re-pack it, or you can work with us on an amendment to reform the court, put in term limits, and limit its partisanship".
What's interesting is that this precise scenario happened in the 1910s in the UK (given that at the time the house of lords was the highest court in the country as well as the upper legislative chamber). Lloyd George called an election on the subject, and negotiated with the king that if the lords didn't vote for a reduction in their powers, he would create a massive influx of Liberal peers.
Interesting episode in history.
If you have a majority on the court that takes this disastrous decision as seriously as they should and are ready to overturn it, then it's fairly easy to get the case to happen. You just need to have a sitting president tell the justice department to bring a case against him. Doesn't have to be for anything big, just literally any criminal offense that can be brought to trial and appealed. He can even appeal directly to the supreme court and ask that they expedite the appeal. They hear the appeal, issue a ruling, and the precedent is gone.
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Biden should get on the floor and force a debate. Bring a nerf gun and just start shooting people who disagree or email in an end of debate.
Unfortunately, margarine transfats green wants to carry.
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They should also abolish the supreme court while they're at it. Just have the justices be pulled at random from lower courts.
Maybe get rid of judicial review, too, since that's apparently just inferred and not an explicit power given to the courts.
Have you seen the dumbasses that get elected as judges for lower courts? Lowering the bar doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
Have you seen the recent dumbasses that have been put on the Supreme Court? There is no bar.
Lot harder to bribe a random pool. Good suggestion. I'd guess you want something like 17 justices though to reduce variability
What's to stop the ~~monkey paw~~ SCOTUS from simply interpreting a large hole in the amendment?
The only way this ever gains traction is if Biden starts abusing the Supreme Court ruling. As long as Republicans see this as something that doesn't hurt them, they will never support it.
So you're saying Biden should start abusing his new powers, maybe by eliminating certain lifetime appointees?
Not really how that works.
It’s like saying “you’re immune from gun shots” and then you go out and try to fly. The immunity doesn’t grant him extra power within his position, it just grants him immunity if he misuses those powers “officially”.
So he could sell pardons, or order the justice department to release his son, or openly accept bribes in a quid pro quo agreement. As long as it’s “official duties” it’s fair game.
And yes, he could likely shoot someone on fifth avenue and state it was official business, and he would have an argument for immunity. Not that it would likely fly at that point.
He also has the power to order special forces to kidnap people and send them to blacksite prisons for being threats to national security. Just sayin'
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the problem is that the ruling hands all the power to the courts so if Joe Biden and Donald Trump committed the same crime for the same reasons the courts could say one has immunity and the other doesn't. The only fix is to take power from the court and just bar the courts from creating immunity at all for any reason.
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Congress passing a constitutional amendment takes priority over court decisions, but there are cases in the past where state laws contradiction federal laws allowed a court ruling to have more power over enforcement such as the 15th Amendment.
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Impeachment of justices by Congress, this was the intentional method of reeling in a rogue SCOTUS, TBH I think that step should even come first but there is no reason not to work on both simultaneously.
It's a not point since it'll never make it past the GOP jackwagons in the house.
Which is why it is important that they're pursuing an amendment to the Constitution and not proposing a legislative statute: SCOTUS case law supercedes everything except what is in the Constitution.
They have to try, get it on the record… Sad reality is all of these efforts are DOA
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A leading House Democrat is preparing a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity ruling, seeking to reverse the decision “and ensure that no president is above the law.”
Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to colleagues informing them of his intent to file the resolution, which would kickstart what’s traditionally a cumbersome amendment process.
The outcome all but ensures the federal cases against Trump will not be resolved before the November election when he faces a likely rematch with President Joe Biden.
While the constitutional amendment process would likely take years, and in fact may never come to fruition, supporters believe it is the most surefire way, even beyond a new law, to enshrine the norm that presidents can face consequences for their actions.
“This amendment will guarantee that no public officer of the United States — including the president — is able to evade the accountability that any other American would face for violating our laws,” Morelle wrote in a letter to colleagues this week.
Another Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said Monday she planned to file articles of impeachment against the justices over the ruling, which she said represents “an assault on American democracy.”
The original article contains 565 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The Supreme Court ruling grants Trump immunity for his official actions as president, but not for private actions. This amendment by Morelle is in line with President Biden's view on the ruling, who argued that it places no limits on presidential power and effectively makes the president a king above the law.
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