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I think this often gets confused. Voting a president in doesn't give them a blank mandate to do whatever they want, such as break the law. And knowingly doing t

I think this often gets confused. Voting a president in doesn't give them a blank mandate to do whatever they want, such as break the law. And knowingly doing things that might not get approved by courts, but veiling it in a "novel legal theory" disguise is still breaking the law. Just because slow and thorough processes need to take place to adjudicate these actions doesn't mean that these actions aren't worth adjudicating. So while voting is important, keeping the voted-in president accountable is important too.

jfengel 1y ago
According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable. I would not have thought that this is what the Constitution says, but the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution says. That's not in the Constitution, either, but they've appropriated that job for two centuries, so we let them get away with it. The "it's not illegal if the President does it" part is new, though they've been leading up to it for decades, so it's not really surprising.
- timr 1y ago
  Or, more charitably: the Supreme Court has says that the president has this authority, in this specific area, and your characterization of this as "breaking the law" is not correct. Edit: actually, even that is overstating it. This is an extremely narrow ruling that is mainly about the powers of federal judges. It's the sort of ruling that the "other side" will trumpet as settled law when they're the ones in power again.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    Less charitably, the Supreme Court has said that this president has this authority. Forgive student loans? No authority! End birthright citizenship? Well, he's the boss!
    - timr 1y ago
      That's nice rhetoric, but they're not the same issue at all.
      - watwut 1y ago
        That is actually what is going on and how right wing justices think.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Yes, there's always some reason it's different when Dems are President with this crew. You're right, though, it is different; birthright citizenship is spelled out, very clearly, in the Constitution. It's an even plainer wrong. It's Calvinball.
        timr 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        Of course there isn't. There's no written rule that the boss's son is gonna get the cushy VP slot, but everyone knows it. Where was SCOTUS when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor issued all his nationwide injunctions?
        timr 1y ago
        Well, that's very cynical and maybe you'll be right, but for now the California AG agrees with me. Per a quote in the WSJ [1]: > California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining: Red states, which sought universal injunctions to stymie Biden administration policies, would encounter obstacles pursuing that strategy under a future Democratic president, he said. Call me a crazy, glass-half-full centrist, but I prefer to look at this as a clawing back of extremely broad powers from rather partisan judges. It's been maddening that circuit court judges in a few hyper-partisan districts basically push every decision to the Supreme Court. [1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-citizenship-decision-ef2c039f?mod=hp_lead_pos3 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-citizenshi...
  - teraflop 1y ago
    The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that the president has the authority to redefine birthright citizenship. What they have actually done is to put very stringent requirements on how the president's authority can be challenged in lower courts. And notably, exactly the same Republican-nominated Supreme Court judges did not do anything to interfere with exactly the same legal process (nationwide injunctions) when they were aimed at a Democratic president. See, e.g. Biden's student loan forgiveness executive order.
    - timr 1y ago
      > The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that the president has the authority to redefine birthright citizenship. Yep, agreed. I already added an edit saying exactly the same thing.
    - tiahura 1y ago
      Because they weren’t challenged on that basis.
      - joshuamorton 1y ago
        They were. "C. The District Court’s Remedy Was Improper" is a section of the petition for cert in The mifeprestone case from the Biden admin[0], where the SC overruled the district court's PI, but declined to address the question of whether it's PI was reasonable. [0]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-235.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/...
  - burkaman 1y ago
    I think that comment is referring to Trump v. United States, where the court said that a president cannot be held accountable for using a Constitutional authority to break the law. It is very literally "a blank mandate to break the law". For example, a president is granted authority to command the military and issue pardons. They have absolute immunity for any act performed using these authorities, including illegal acts such as assassinating or deporting a political opponent or accepting bribes in return for pardons. This is not a matter of opinion or a controversial interpretation, these consequences were discussed during the case and in the opinion, and the court accepted them.
    - Amezarak 1y ago
      This was also discussed in the Constitutional Convention, where the participants decided the impeachment process, and failing that, four-year terms, were a sufficient remedy.
      - tshaddox 1y ago
        Surely the President could simply prevent congresspeople from voting to impeach via various means.
        Amezarak 1y ago
        Sure, that was a concern: a sufficiently large faction of Senators might combine to protect a bad President, or destroy a good one unjustly. > Mr. MADISON, objected to a trial of the President by the Senate, especially as he was to be impeached by the other branch of the Legislature, and for any act which might be called a misdemeanor. The President under these circumstances was made improperly dependent. He would prefer the Supreme Court for the trial of impeachments, or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part. > Mr. PINKNEY disapproved of making the Senate the Court of impeachments, as rendering the President too dependent on the Legislature. If he opposes a favorite law, the two Houses will combine agst. him, and under the influence of heat and faction throw him out of office. Ultimately it was decided that "in four years he can be turned out", so it was not worth addressing further. Indeed some argued that the President should not be impeachable at all because of this. > Mr. KING expressed his apprehensions that an extreme caution in favor of liberty might enervate the Government we were forming. He wished the House to recur to the primitive axiom that the three great departments of Govts. should be separate & independent: that the Executive & Judiciary should be so as well as the Legislative: that the Executive should be so equally with the Judiciary. Would this be the case, if the Executive should be impeachable? It had been said that the Judiciary would be impeachable. But it should have been remembered at the same time that the Judiciary hold their places not for a limited time, but during good behaviour. It is necessary therefore that a forum should be established for trying misbehaviour. Was the Executive to hold his place during good behaviour? The Executive was to hold his place for a limited term like the members of the Legislature: Like them particularly the Senate whose members would continue in appointmt the same term of 6 years he would periodically be tried for his behaviour by his electors, who would continue or discontinue him in trust according to the manner in which he had discharged it. Like them therefore, he ought to be subject to no intermediate trial, by impeachment. He ought not to be impeachable unless he held his office during good behaviour, a tenure which would be most agreeable to him; provided an independent and effectual forum could be devised. But under no circumstances ought he to be impeachable by the Legislature. This would be destructive of his independence and of the principles of the Constitution. He relied on the vigor of the Executive as a great security for the public liberties.
  - anigbrowl 1y ago
    The grandparent comment refers to a ruling from last year about Presidential immunity.
  - KoolKat23 1y ago
    And the 14th amendment right to equal protection clause?
- tiahura 1y ago
  Incorrect. Congress has a multitude of means to check the president.
  - jfengel 1y ago
    They really only have one, and it has never been used successfully.
    - tiahura 1y ago
      Impeachment, confirmation power, budget
- ReptileMan 1y ago
  >According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable. The president absolutely is accountable. The problem is the Congress for their own reasons refuse to hold it to account. The Congress could remove any president in less than 24 hours with simple majority for no reason whatsoever.
  - wnoise 1y ago
    They cannot. It requires a simple majority in the House followed by a 2/3 majority in the Senate. This is basically impossible to achieve.
- hakunin 1y ago
  I am aware of this ruling, and disagree with it. My comment was making a broader point: There's a mistaken notion that a lawyer can advise you to do something that they think courts might find illegal later, "and that's how we'll find out whether we can do it." That's illegal both, for a lawyer to advise, and for anyone to follow. A president is supposed to collaborate with the other branches to find constitutional solutions to problems, not deliberately attempt to overwhelm them with edge cases. But yeah, the ruling on criminal immunity feels horrific to me.
cmurf 1y ago
Except voting this person to the presidency has given just over 1000 convicted criminals a pardon, as promised in advance. It’s an unlimited and irreversible power. The Court has long considered that the president has a duty to follow the law, but also that the Court can’t compel the president to follow the law. That is a political question. Congress alone can stop a president by impeaching and removing them from office. Not only can’t the Court initiate impeachments, impeachment is unreviewable by the Court. If there’s a servile Congress, it means voters can elect a law breaker as president. They are going to get a president who breaks the law. And this is what’s happening. People voted for an abuser, a rapist, a felon, a conspiracy theorist who lies about the outcome of elections, lies that VPOTUS can and should overturn them, and even sent a mob to have that VPOTUS assassinated for refusing to comply with that illegal order. Then boasted he’d pardon all those criminals who were in his service. And despite all of this, people voted for him again. The people got exactly what they voted for.
tshaddox 1y ago
Also, any time anyone actually brings up any details about Presidential elections you'll quick get many people rushing to explain how the people do not in fact directly elect the President and how this is such an incredibly brilliant idea.

jfengel 1y ago

According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable. I would not have thought that this is what the Constitution says, but the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution says. That's not in the Constitution, either, but they've appropriated that job for two centuries, so we let them get away with it. The "it's not illegal if the President does it" part is new, though they've been leading up to it for decades, so it's not really surprising.

timr 1y ago
Or, more charitably: the Supreme Court has says that the president has this authority, in this specific area, and your characterization of this as "breaking the law" is not correct. Edit: actually, even that is overstating it. This is an extremely narrow ruling that is mainly about the powers of federal judges. It's the sort of ruling that the "other side" will trumpet as settled law when they're the ones in power again.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  Less charitably, the Supreme Court has said that this president has this authority. Forgive student loans? No authority! End birthright citizenship? Well, he's the boss!
  - timr 1y ago
    That's nice rhetoric, but they're not the same issue at all.
    - watwut 1y ago
      That is actually what is going on and how right wing justices think.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Yes, there's always some reason it's different when Dems are President with this crew. You're right, though, it is different; birthright citizenship is spelled out, very clearly, in the Constitution. It's an even plainer wrong. It's Calvinball.
      - timr 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        Of course there isn't. There's no written rule that the boss's son is gonna get the cushy VP slot, but everyone knows it. Where was SCOTUS when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor issued all his nationwide injunctions?
        timr 1y ago
        Well, that's very cynical and maybe you'll be right, but for now the California AG agrees with me. Per a quote in the WSJ [1]: > California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining: Red states, which sought universal injunctions to stymie Biden administration policies, would encounter obstacles pursuing that strategy under a future Democratic president, he said. Call me a crazy, glass-half-full centrist, but I prefer to look at this as a clawing back of extremely broad powers from rather partisan judges. It's been maddening that circuit court judges in a few hyper-partisan districts basically push every decision to the Supreme Court. [1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-citizenship-decision-ef2c039f?mod=hp_lead_pos3 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-citizenshi...
- teraflop 1y ago
  The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that the president has the authority to redefine birthright citizenship. What they have actually done is to put very stringent requirements on how the president's authority can be challenged in lower courts. And notably, exactly the same Republican-nominated Supreme Court judges did not do anything to interfere with exactly the same legal process (nationwide injunctions) when they were aimed at a Democratic president. See, e.g. Biden's student loan forgiveness executive order.
  - timr 1y ago
    > The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that the president has the authority to redefine birthright citizenship. Yep, agreed. I already added an edit saying exactly the same thing.
  - tiahura 1y ago
    Because they weren’t challenged on that basis.
    - joshuamorton 1y ago
      They were. "C. The District Court’s Remedy Was Improper" is a section of the petition for cert in The mifeprestone case from the Biden admin[0], where the SC overruled the district court's PI, but declined to address the question of whether it's PI was reasonable. [0]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-235.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/...
- burkaman 1y ago
  I think that comment is referring to Trump v. United States, where the court said that a president cannot be held accountable for using a Constitutional authority to break the law. It is very literally "a blank mandate to break the law". For example, a president is granted authority to command the military and issue pardons. They have absolute immunity for any act performed using these authorities, including illegal acts such as assassinating or deporting a political opponent or accepting bribes in return for pardons. This is not a matter of opinion or a controversial interpretation, these consequences were discussed during the case and in the opinion, and the court accepted them.
  - Amezarak 1y ago
    This was also discussed in the Constitutional Convention, where the participants decided the impeachment process, and failing that, four-year terms, were a sufficient remedy.
    - tshaddox 1y ago
      Surely the President could simply prevent congresspeople from voting to impeach via various means.
      - Amezarak 1y ago
        Sure, that was a concern: a sufficiently large faction of Senators might combine to protect a bad President, or destroy a good one unjustly. > Mr. MADISON, objected to a trial of the President by the Senate, especially as he was to be impeached by the other branch of the Legislature, and for any act which might be called a misdemeanor. The President under these circumstances was made improperly dependent. He would prefer the Supreme Court for the trial of impeachments, or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part. > Mr. PINKNEY disapproved of making the Senate the Court of impeachments, as rendering the President too dependent on the Legislature. If he opposes a favorite law, the two Houses will combine agst. him, and under the influence of heat and faction throw him out of office. Ultimately it was decided that "in four years he can be turned out", so it was not worth addressing further. Indeed some argued that the President should not be impeachable at all because of this. > Mr. KING expressed his apprehensions that an extreme caution in favor of liberty might enervate the Government we were forming. He wished the House to recur to the primitive axiom that the three great departments of Govts. should be separate & independent: that the Executive & Judiciary should be so as well as the Legislative: that the Executive should be so equally with the Judiciary. Would this be the case, if the Executive should be impeachable? It had been said that the Judiciary would be impeachable. But it should have been remembered at the same time that the Judiciary hold their places not for a limited time, but during good behaviour. It is necessary therefore that a forum should be established for trying misbehaviour. Was the Executive to hold his place during good behaviour? The Executive was to hold his place for a limited term like the members of the Legislature: Like them particularly the Senate whose members would continue in appointmt the same term of 6 years he would periodically be tried for his behaviour by his electors, who would continue or discontinue him in trust according to the manner in which he had discharged it. Like them therefore, he ought to be subject to no intermediate trial, by impeachment. He ought not to be impeachable unless he held his office during good behaviour, a tenure which would be most agreeable to him; provided an independent and effectual forum could be devised. But under no circumstances ought he to be impeachable by the Legislature. This would be destructive of his independence and of the principles of the Constitution. He relied on the vigor of the Executive as a great security for the public liberties.
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  The grandparent comment refers to a ruling from last year about Presidential immunity.
- KoolKat23 1y ago
  And the 14th amendment right to equal protection clause?
tiahura 1y ago
Incorrect. Congress has a multitude of means to check the president.
- jfengel 1y ago
  They really only have one, and it has never been used successfully.
  - tiahura 1y ago
    Impeachment, confirmation power, budget
ReptileMan 1y ago
>According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable. The president absolutely is accountable. The problem is the Congress for their own reasons refuse to hold it to account. The Congress could remove any president in less than 24 hours with simple majority for no reason whatsoever.
- wnoise 1y ago
  They cannot. It requires a simple majority in the House followed by a 2/3 majority in the Senate. This is basically impossible to achieve.
hakunin 1y ago
I am aware of this ruling, and disagree with it. My comment was making a broader point: There's a mistaken notion that a lawyer can advise you to do something that they think courts might find illegal later, "and that's how we'll find out whether we can do it." That's illegal both, for a lawyer to advise, and for anyone to follow. A president is supposed to collaborate with the other branches to find constitutional solutions to problems, not deliberately attempt to overwhelm them with edge cases. But yeah, the ruling on criminal immunity feels horrific to me.

cmurf 1y ago

Except voting this person to the presidency has given just over 1000 convicted criminals a pardon, as promised in advance. It’s an unlimited and irreversible power. The Court has long considered that the president has a duty to follow the law, but also that the Court can’t compel the president to follow the law. That is a political question. Congress alone can stop a president by impeaching and removing them from office. Not only can’t the Court initiate impeachments, impeachment is unreviewable by the Court. If there’s a servile Congress, it means voters can elect a law breaker as president. They are going to get a president who breaks the law. And this is what’s happening. People voted for an abuser, a rapist, a felon, a conspiracy theorist who lies about the outcome of elections, lies that VPOTUS can and should overturn them, and even sent a mob to have that VPOTUS assassinated for refusing to comply with that illegal order. Then boasted he’d pardon all those criminals who were in his service. And despite all of this, people voted for him again. The people got exactly what they voted for.

tshaddox 1y ago

Also, any time anyone actually brings up any details about Presidential elections you'll quick get many people rushing to explain how the people do not in fact directly elect the President and how this is such an incredibly brilliant idea.