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.

“This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do — prioritize our democracy,” Morelle said in a statement to AP.

It’s the most significant legislative response yet to the decision this week from the court’s conservative majority, which stunned Washington and drew a sharp dissent from the court’s liberal justices warning of the perils to democracy, particularly as Trump seeks a return to the White House. Still, the effort stands almost no chance of succeeding in this Congress.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
152 points

IMO the only valid move for Biden right now asap, is to use his new immunity powers to invalidate his immunity powers, as a display of self checkmate.

Declare the full supreme court under threat of death has to go back and redo the decision, and all of them must vote to reverse it and remove the presidential immunity, or be hung.

This of course means “if you dont remove my ability to kill you, you will die”.

Its the ultimate display of being handed ultimate power, and rejecting it through the power itself.

I cant think of any other move that makes sense really. It would be a headache in court but thats what the supreme justices get for making such a stupid ass decision.

permalink
report
reply
67 points
*

As far as I understand the decision (IANAL!), the definition of what constitutes an “Official Act” is left intentionally undefined, so in effect you can only claim this ultimate power if the courts like you in order to declare what you’re doing official.

This means, if I understand it correctly, king powers for Trump and nothing for Biden. They’d just rule everything Biden is doing as not an official act.

permalink
report
parent
reply
34 points

The ruling happens after the act. Who knows what justices we’ll have by then.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

I, for one, welcome our new unelected overlords.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Biden could execute all members of the court and replace them with people who will agree everything he does is legal.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

This is easy to get around.

Just start any order with “In my capacity as president, I decree that…”

permalink
report
parent
reply
34 points

*hanged.

“Hung” is a… different thing, which the male justices might see as a positive.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-9 points

They’re the same word now. Hooray language evolving!

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Hung Mike Pence

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Hooray Idiocracy!

permalink
report
parent
reply
-9 points

Idk, can’t we fantasize about how Thomas could be hung like a black man?

permalink
report
parent
reply
23 points

We are dealing with psychopaths who are itching to murder people and they vow to NOT recognize a free and fair election. VOTE people.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

I love how people will open face admit that voting is clearly not enough and then be like “remember to vote owo”

I think folks need to start digging into a little stronger stuff than simply voting, lol

Need to start looking into further legal options beyond just voting.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. In that order.

If you’re just standing on your soap box unwilling to go to the ballot box, you’re probably not going to be willing to go to the other boxes that may be necessary. It doesn’t take that much effort to vote, and the other things take even more effort than that.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.

Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
1 point

I have to continue my streak of always upvoting Innuendo Studios.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

So what about the part after the vote when those who vowed to ignore said vote do so?

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

You realize immunity doesn’t mean declare what you want, and you get it?

Also It’s not illegal for Biden to say he is invalidating his immunity powers, it’s just meaningless. Now if he punched Stormy Daniel’s until she agreed to give syphilis to the court, that might be illegal acts that fall under his official duties.

Also, you need the courts behind whatever illegal thing you are going to do.

permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points
  1. Declare new rules
  2. Use any method, legal or otherwise, to enforce said rules
  3. Claim immunity

Congratulations. You’ve successfully used immunity to declare whatever you want.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

Immunity is for crimes which is explicitly about breaking the rules, it’s not about making up new rules.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

The idea that you actually need courts behind you is laughable. Power is enforced through the threat of violence, this is how law enforcement functions. Courts do not have soldiers.

Know who does? Commander-in-Chief, now with full immunity for any official act, like, giving orders to the military.

One could say perhaps the soldiers themselves would be afraid of prosecution and would disobey orders, since they don’t get immunity. Until the President pardons them anyway.

Otherwise only one last line of firm defense remains: the oath each serviceman takes to defend the Constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. That might make someone disobey an illegal order.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

There’s a quote from Andrew Jackson when he ignored the Court where he basically told them to enforce their decisions themselves.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

You need to have the military behind you and ready to do illegal things. When sworn to refuse illegal orders, this may not be so ready to go

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

You realize, no…

Immunity here means declare whatever you want, and then mandate that the military eliminate anyone who opposes your new mandate. This “fun” hypothetical is a president invalidating their immunity powers and then having that decree reinforced by death, that second part is the illegal you want in this equation.

It’s done to “Save America”, so it’s an official act.

“If a president couldn’t freely do rapes, bribes, frauds and incite violence without repercussions, who would way to be president?”

  • one of the two candidates for US President probably
permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

The coward Clarence Thomas would resign. Piece of shit.

permalink
report
parent
reply
35 points

Sounds like a win to me

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

That was my thought too. This is sweeping and broad enough there’s honestly likely multiple ways to just use the ruling to undo the ruling.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Hanged*

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Would still end with him getting arrested/impeached though, I guess he could do it as a self-sacrifice thing and leave Harris to run

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

There’s a difference between having the authority to do something and being immune to prosecution for a crime.

Biden doesn’t have the authority to issue an order for summary execution.

If he could convince someone to commit the crime of killing members of SCOTUS, and it was considered an official act of the President, then he might be shielded from prosecution for it, and he could issue a pardon for those that did the deed.

The ruling only benefits a criminal President, and Biden isn’t a criminal.

permalink
report
parent
reply
0 points

Happy Cake Day, will you be my President?

permalink
report
parent
reply
-8 points

Except Biden is an adult and not petulant child. Democracy will prevail. The voters will take care of it come November.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

lmao

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

The average American has zero clue how anything in the government works, nor the interest in policy to actually understand what the policies their politician of choice are pushing do. The average American is so disconnected from politics it’s zero surprise that shitty politicians are elected everywhere regularly.

This isn’t an indictment of the people themselves but the society they live in that somehow incientivizes general laziness when it comes to civics

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

The republikkklowns have really simplified it though.They STAND for removing human rights, racism, facism and against anything good for the people. At this point you have two choices. Democracy or Dictatorship. I’ll take human rights and Democracy please.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

That doesnt take care of it, nor can voters take care of it.

Even if Biden gets re-elected, this ruling stays in play perpetually until someone undoes it, which requires the supreme court justices to walk it back after a period of time.

The only option is to use the newly granted powers themself to undo the granted powers.

It’s, imo, the only play.

Also this has nothing to do with being a “petulant child”, it proves the point of how the granted powers are over-reaching.

If they werent over-reaching, then he wouldnt be able to use them to do this. It becomes a forced move on the justices behalf.

They either:

a. Accept the powers are to overpowered and in turn are forced to, through the command itself, have to roll it back or b. Rule that Biden cant do that, which forces cementing an upper limit on what the powers can do (it establishes a baseline that you cant just use the powers to force supreme justice acts and/or to order people to die)

Either way, it either neuters the powers to some extent or completely nullifies them.

permalink
report
parent
reply

News

!news@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

Community stats

  • 16K

    Monthly active users

  • 15K

    Posts

  • 408K

    Comments