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Post by Cornflake on Jul 1, 2024 10:52:28 GMT -5
We learn that a president has absolute immunity for official acts but no immunity for unofficial acts. So courts will have to decide which box to put challenged conduct in.
Although the court split along ideological lines, I might have been with the conservative majority on this one. Or maybe not. Presidents have to have some immunity. Whether this rule works well in practice remains to be seen. I don't think calling a Georgia official to ask if he could come up with another 10,000 votes should be viewed as an official act. If the category of "official acts" is interpreted broadly enough, the rule could produce some dubious results. But I can't think of a better rule.
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Post by epaul on Jul 1, 2024 11:16:10 GMT -5
Agree.
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Post by howard lee on Jul 1, 2024 11:32:40 GMT -5
We learn that a president has absolute immunity for official acts but no immunity for unofficial acts. So courts will have to decide which box to put challenged conduct in. Although the court split along ideological lines, I might have been with the conservative majority on this one. Or maybe not. Presidents have to have some immunity. Whether this rule works well in practice remains to be seen. I don't think calling a Georgia official to ask if he could come up with another 10,000 votes should be viewed as an official act. If the category of "official acts" is interpreted broadly enough, the rule could produce some dubious results. But I can't think of a better rule.
There is so much latitude for interpretation here. Don, do you think something like inciting an insurrection in an effort to abort the peaceful transfer of power after an election falls under the category of official or unofficial act? Asking for a friend.
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Post by james on Jul 1, 2024 11:42:10 GMT -5
Sotomayor: "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."
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Post by epaul on Jul 1, 2024 12:21:22 GMT -5
Lining your pockets in return for pardons is not an "official" act. Nor is leaning on election judges to try conjure up some extra non-existent votes in an election campaign an official act of the presidency. The mere act of occupying an office does not make everything done within that office legal or official. That is established law enforced in offices across this country.
If guidance is needed, there is a list of impeachable actions listed in the Constitution. Impeachable actions do not fall within a president's official duties by definition. The listing of those actions in the Constitution provides a framework a court can use to determine "official"/"personal" regardless of whether there is an actual removal via impeachment.
On the flip side, should a president face the threat of a lawsuit for a military action ordered by his command that goes south or is later deemed to have been "wrongful" when the political winds have turned against him?
...Charges brought perhaps brought by the attorney general appointed by his successor... or perhaps charges brought by a World Court. Joe sued for Afghanistan, Obama for some assassination, Bush for ordering the bombing of a Bagdad restaurant that had no bad guys in it?
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 1, 2024 12:22:43 GMT -5
Howard, a disclaimer: I haven't read the full decision. Nobody pays me to do that now and it's not something I'd do for fun.
I read summaries of the decision on Fox and AP. They indicated that acts taken as a candidate would probably not be viewed as official acts and would therefore not enjoy immunity. I tend to view his January 6th speech as the act of a candidate. The courts may or may not agree.
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 1, 2024 13:38:02 GMT -5
Now I understand that AOC is filing impeachment charges against the conservative SC justices.
The sh*t show that is the Democratic party just keeps rolling.
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Post by howard lee on Jul 1, 2024 13:44:50 GMT -5
Now I understand that AOC is filing impeachment charges against the conservative SC justices. The sh*t show that is the Democratic party just keeps rolling.
My son says that the Republican and Democratic parties are two sides of the same coin. I am not ready to go whole-hog in agreement with him, but I can appreciate the rationale behind his opinion. I long for the days when there was respect on both sides of the aisle, when reps of opposing parties could get things done in a bi-partisan fashion instead of the sh*t-slinging fest that Congress and the courts have become. But when I try to think of when those days were, I can't really pin them down!* 😀
* This would likely pre-date the time Representative Preston Brooks, the pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, the abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts, in May 1856.
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Post by theevan on Jul 1, 2024 14:15:03 GMT -5
Is there anything in the Jan6 speech that could be considered criminal? I'm not inclined to listen.
Howard, I'm kind of with your son.
And Trump is another place altogether, neither D nor R.
Crazy times. Historic.
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 1, 2024 14:30:04 GMT -5
Is there anything in the Jan6 speech that could be considered criminal? I'm not inclined to listen. Howard, I'm kind of with your son. And Trump is another place altogether, neither D nor R. Crazy times. Historic. No, there's nothing in the Jan. 6 speech that could rationally be considered criminal. |
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Post by james on Jul 1, 2024 16:40:08 GMT -5
Is there anything in the Jan6 speech that could be considered criminal? I'm not inclined to listen. The Jan 6th indictment doesn’t include any counts stemming specifically from the ellipse speech. Conspiracy and obstruction charges being preferred. First amendment issues and the use of words like "peacefully and patriotically* by Trump perhaps raising plausible deniability complications.* *More thoughts about that in the informative article linked below, which does however contain the following remark from the Special Counsel. www.justsecurity.org/91904/dissecting-trumps-peacefully-and-patriotically-defense-of-the-january-6th-attack/ |
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Post by TKennedy on Jul 1, 2024 16:51:02 GMT -5
Living through historical times is not all it's cracked up to be. I'd prefer the Wright Brothers or the vulcanization of rubber.
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 1, 2024 17:14:27 GMT -5
"Is there anything in the Jan6 speech that could be considered criminal?" I don't know, Evan. I never practiced criminal law.
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Post by Marshall on Jul 2, 2024 7:02:27 GMT -5
Lining your pockets in return for pardons is not an "official" act. Nor is leaning on election judges to try conjure up some extra non-existent votes in an election campaign is an official act of the presidency. The mere act of occupying an office does not make everything done within that office legal or official. That is established law enforced in offices across this country. If guidance is needed, there is a list of impeachable actions listed in the Constitution. Impeachable actions do not fall within a president's official duties by definition. The listing of those actions in the Constitution provides a framework a court can use to determine "official"/"personal" regardless of whether there is an actual removal via impeachment. On the flip side, should a president face the threat of a lawsuit for a military action ordered by his command that goes south or is later deemed to have been "wrongful" when the political winds have turned against him? ...Charges brought perhaps brought by the attorney general appointed by his successor... or perhaps charges brought by a World Court. Joe sued for Afghanistan, Obama for some assassination, Bush for ordering the bombing of a Bagdad restaurant that had no bad guys in it? WMDs |
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Post by howard lee on Jul 2, 2024 7:31:01 GMT -5
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Post by Cornflake on Jul 2, 2024 8:17:50 GMT -5
"And Trump is another place altogether, neither D nor R."
I can understand why you say that, Evan. But here, at least, the Republican Party has become the party of Trump. The former president of the State Senate, Republican Rusty Bowers, declined a request by Trump and Giuliani to override the election result. As a result he was defeated in the next primary. Our country recorder, Republican Steven Richer, energetically defended the accuracy of the 2020 election results. The vice-chair of the state party recently called for Richer to be lynched. He'll very likely get defeated in the upcoming primary. As a practical matter "R" has been redefined.
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Post by Marshall on Jul 2, 2024 9:01:52 GMT -5
Future historians will make a career on covering Trump.
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Post by millring on Jul 2, 2024 14:06:52 GMT -5
Future historians will make a career on covering Trump. I've wondered about that quite a bit. Right now almost all there is of Trump is a distortion. I wonder if some time down the line some historians not trapped by the need to secure or advance a current day narrative will paint a completely different picture of him? Probably not, though. They'll do their interpreting through the lens of their current political narratives. Truth is what the best writers make it. We still haven't found anything more powerful than the pen -- especially as amplified by a world wide web. |
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Post by John B on Jul 2, 2024 14:20:04 GMT -5
Future historians will make a career on covering Trump. I've wondered about that quite a bit. Right now almost all there is of Trump is a distortion. I wonder if some time down the line some historians not trapped by the need to secure or advance a current day narrative will paint a completely different picture of him? Probably not, though. They'll do their interpreting through the lens of their current political narratives. Truth is what the best writers make it. We still haven't found anything more powerful than the pen -- especially as amplified by a world wide web. So I'm not good at reading context, so taken with a grain of salt, it seems to me like you are distaining historians in general, and people who interpret events through whatever current lens is available. And it seems (to me) like you think the fact that 'the pen' is powerful is a negative thing, or maybe only when magnified (though the printing press might have had a bigger impact - but maybe not). But I think I am adding my own interpretations of what you actually wrote, so please feel free to correct me. When I read it, it seems negative. When I listen to you say the words in your own voice (using my imagination), it doesn't sound negative at all. So I've confused myself. |
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Post by millring on Jul 2, 2024 15:11:06 GMT -5
I believe it's complicated. I think there are conscientious historians in every generation. But historians who didn't live in the time they are analyzing are at a disadvantage. Obviously.
Additionally, the better historians may or may not be read. We are currently going through a particularly suspect time in academia where history is only accepted if it fits a preconceived narrative. Of course, the academics who are doing that would insist that they are doing so to correct a previous academic world that only accepted history if it fit a particular narrative.....and on and on and on.
I've lately been on a bit of a jag following the story line of how the current church came to distrust the very history upon which it was built. In utter embarrassment, it folded almost immediately under the first academic pressure that challenged it -- never even realizing the equally credentialed challenges to those challenges was just around the next corner. And so on and so on and so on.
Ideas are the most powerful force on earth. And writing is how mankind harnesses and unleashes that power.
Right now the pen has never had such easy and willing access to the additional power to deceive. And the very best, most effective deception is the one that contains the most truth.
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