[!@#$%!]

kali yuga agents have granted immunity to a criminal! just 468,000 more years to go lolol....ok i'm gonna try to prevent a heart attack here...

i think i'm gonna watch jeff goldblum eat bagels and catch murderers in a make-believe world where shit works out...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

kali yuga agents have granted immunity to a criminal! just 468,000 more years to go lolol....ok i'm gonna try to prevent a heart attack here...

i think i'm gonna watch jeff goldblum eat bagels and catch murderers in a make-believe world where shit works out...

It's over. The United States is fucking over.

From The Nation:

The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially

Under this new standard, a president can go on a four-to-eight year crime spree and then retire from public life, never to be held accountable.

by Elie Mystal

Welp, Donald Trump won. The Supreme Court today ruled that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for official acts, then contended that pressuring the vice president and the Department of Justice to overthrow the government was an “official act,” then said that talking to advisers or making public statements are “official acts” as well, and then determined that evidence of what presidents say and do cannot be used against them to establish that their acts are “unofficial.”

The ruling from the Supreme Court was 6-3, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, on a straight party-line vote, with all the Republican-appointed justices joining to give the president the power of a king. While some parts of the federal indictment against Trump will be remanded back down to the district-court trial judge to determine whether any of Trump’s actions were “unofficial” (“unofficial” acts, the court says are not entitled to immunity), Trump’s victory in front of the Supreme Court is total. Essentially, all he has to do is claim that everything he did to plot a coup was part of his “official” duties, and the Supreme Court provided no clear method or evidentiary standard that can be used to challenge that presumption.

Legally, there are two critical things to understand about the totality of the court’s ruling here:

• The immunity is absolute
• There is no legislative way to get rid of what the court has given

On the first point, the immunity granted to Trump in this case far exceeds the immunity granted to, say, police officers or other government officials, when they act in their official capacities. Those officials are granted “qualified” immunity from civil penalties. Because the immunity is “qualified” it can be taken away (“pierced” is the legal jargon for taking away an official’s qualified immunity). People can bring evidence against officials and argue that they shouldn’t be given immunity because of the gravity or depravity of their acts.

Not so with Trump. Presidents are now entitled to “absolute” immunity, which means that no matter what they do, the immunity cannot be lost. They are always and forever immune, no matter what evidence is brought to bear.

Moreover, unlike other officials, presidents are now entitled to absolute immunity from criminal charges. Even a cop can be charged with, say, murder, even if they argue that killing people is part of their jobs. But not presidents. Presidents can murder, rape, steal, and pretty much do whatever they want, so long as they argue that murdering, raping, or stealing is part of the official job of the president of the United States. There is no crime that pierces the veil of absolute immunity.

And there is essentially nothing we can do to change it. The courts created qualified immunity for public officials, but it can be undone by state or federal legislatures if they pass a law removing that protection. Not so with absolute presidential immunity. The court here says that absolute immunity is required by the separation of powers inherent in the Constitution, meaning that Congress cannot take it away. Congress, according to the Supreme Court, does not have the power to pass legislation saying “the president can be prosecuted for crimes.” Impeachment, and only impeachment, is the only way to punish presidents, and, somewhat obviously, impeachment does nothing to a president who is already no longer in office.

Under this new standard, a president can go on a four-to-eight year crime spree, steal all the money, and murder all the people they can get their hands on, all under guise of presumptive “official” behavior, and then retire from public life, never to be held accountable for their crimes while in office. That, according to the court, is what the Constitution requires.

There will be Republicans and legal academics and whatever the hell job Jonathan Turley has who will go into overdrive arguing that the decision isn’t as bad as all that. These bad-faith actors will be quoted or even published in The Washington Post and The New York Times. They will argue that presidents can still be prosecuted for “unofficial acts,” and so they will say that everything is fine.

But they will be wrong, because while the Supreme Court says “unofficial” acts are still prosecutable, the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting “unofficially.” And more importantly, the court has left virtually no vector of evidence that can be deployed against a president to prove that their acts were “unofficial.” If trying to overthrow the government is “official,” then what isn’t? And if we can’t use the evidence of what the president says or does, because communications with their advisers, other government officials, and the public is “official,” then how can we ever show that an act was taken “unofficially”?

Take the now classic example of a president ordering Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival. According to the logic of the Republicans on the Supreme Court, that would likely be an official act. According to their logic, there is also no way to prove it’s “unofficial,” because any conversation the president has with their military advisers (where, for instance, the president tells them why they want a particular person assassinated) is official and cannot be used against them.

There will doubtless be people still wondering if Trump can somehow be prosecuted: The answer is “no.” Special counsel Jack Smith will surely argue that presenting fake electors in connection with his cadre of campaign sycophants was not an “official act.” Lower court judges may well agree. But when that appeal gets back to the Supreme Court next year, the same justices who just ruled that Trump is entitled to absolute immunity will surely rule that submitting fake electors was also part of Trump’s “official” responsibilities.

There is no way to change that outcome in the short term. In the long term, the only way to undo the authoritarianism the court has just ushered in is to expand the Supreme Court. Democrats would have to win the upcoming presidential election and the House and the Senate. Then Congress would have to pass a law expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court; then the Senate would have to pass that law as well, which, at a minimum, would likely have to include getting rid of the filibuster. Then the president would have to sign such a bill, and appoint additional Supreme Court justices who do not think that presidents should be kings, then those justices would have to be confirmed. And all of that would have to happen before the current Supreme Court hears whatever Trump appeal from his January 6 charges comes up next, because if court expansion happens after the current Supreme Court dismisses the charges against him, double jeopardy will attach and Trump can never be prosecuted again under a less-fascist court.

So, since that’s not going to happen, Trump won. He won completely. He tried to overthrow the government, and he got away with it. I cannot even imagine what he’ll try if he is actually given power again, knowing full well that he will never be held accountable for literal crimes.

If you ever wondered what you’d have done in ancient Rome, when the Roman Republic was shuttered and Augustus Caesar declared himself the “first” citizen of Rome, the answer is: whatever you’re doing right now. It’s what you would have done during the Restoration of King Charles II in England, and what you would have done when Napoleon declared himself emperor of France. This, right here, is how republics die.

And the answer that cries out from the abyss of history is that most people, in real time, don’t care. Republics fall because most citizens are willing to give it away. Most people think that it won’t be that bad to lose the rule of law, and the people who stand to benefit from the ending of republican self-government tell everybody that it will be OK. When the Imperium came to be, the Romans didn’t realize that they were seeing the last form of European self-government for 2,000 years, and the ones who did were largely happy about it.

For my part, I assume that like Mark Antony’s wife, Fulvia, defiling the decapitated head of Cicero, Martha-Ann Alito will be jabbing her golden hairpin into my tongue for criticizing the powerful soon enough. But I’m just a writer. I wonder what the rest of you will do as the last vestiges of democracy are taken away by the Imperial Supreme Court and the untouchable executive officer they’ve just created.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

It's over. The United States is fucking over.

From The Nation:

well biden is still president, so... he could immunize himself too

like, he could send all 6 unfavorable judges plus trumpo to guantánamo on "official" capacity, and be immune from prosecution

no?

[!@#$%!]

he could also pick up mtg and matt gaetz and wassername and drop them into the arctic ocean from a helicopter like you-know-who. official immunity!

...


anyway this is fucking ridiculous but here we go anyway

(first as tragedy, then as farce)

stoicism + epicureanism remain individual remedies of last resort

[!@#$%!]

the roman comparison is useful i suppose

the roman empire fought the persians (parthians then sassanids) until the rise of the arabs, who took north africa and spain and judea and persia itself... then rome was finally beaten by the turks who inherited from both arabs and persians

is china the new persia? i want to stay the fuck out of the way of the upcoming wars...

well shit, whatever happens happens. kali yuga here we go!

 

[!@#$%!]

found this, read it

https://billmoyers.com/story/increas...horitarianism/

without an external opposition however an empire can last forever

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

is china the new persia?

No dude, Persia is Iran now.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

No dude, Persia is Iran now.

 

you never did the analogies test huh? haha ok

as fun as it would be for reality to follow fiction, i don't see the 1984 blocks really happening now

oceania / eurasia / eastasia? hmmmm

well actually we don't even know if those actually existed in the world of the novel or if they were just made up for propaganda, something often missed when people talk about 1984, "the world is divided in..." well we can't know

but in orwell's times those 3 blocks were imaginable and also possible (hence their popularity)

however, the symbolic eurasia/eastasia are now merging in real life. so we now just have 2 big warring blocks shaping up

in antiquity also we had 2! it was greece/rome "the west" vs roughly persia as "the east" (china was in its own world)

historically, the "east" of europe used to be the persians, because china was too far for full contact. the hun and mongol cavalries did kiss the edge of europe but never really stayed for long. the russians were the ones in trouble with the tartars (but now they will be a chinese province so they don't matter in the long run)

for millennia however we had:

egypt vs mesopotamia
greece vs the persians
(alexander joins the edges briefly)
rome (who took egypt) vs the parthians
greek rome (byzantium) vs the sassanids
europe vs the arabs (who take over persia and greek rome)
europe vs the ottomans (who finished killing greek rome)

see the dividing line, always returning?

but now! persia is piddly and practically a pawn. and china is the big bogeyman it was never before! they used to be providers of exotic merch, now they are the competition even in africa korps, they are putin's patrons, iran's buddies, etc

china as enemy of "the west" is a new paradigm, at multimillennial scale.

but it's same song as the old anti-persian song, just different lyrics now. this is bigger than ever. it's planetary. russia + iran + china + north korea *a block*. we didnt have this before. usa the new rome and china in charge of persia. actually nato is more like the delian league than rome. but ok it's not a replication, just theme + variations

(previously we had "the eastern block" with the soviets but that was short-lived. russia and china used to be enemies which is what drove china and nixon together)

and now that the usa is heading towards full imperial government... who is going to stop this madness? we'll be ruled by fiat and assassinations just like "the other side". xi, putin, kim and the ayatollah vs ... our own unchecked authoritarians?

i am just looking to get away from the future front lines (eg yesterday the balkans, today ukraine and gaza, tomorrow...?). hard to tell where they will be with satellites and hypersonic nukes and cyberwarfare though

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

well biden is still president, so... he could immunize himself too

like, he could send all 6 unfavorable judges plus trumpo to guantánamo on "official" capacity, and be immune from prosecution

no?

We all know the Democrats don't have the balls to act so decisively

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

We all know the Democrats don't have the balls to act so decisively

of course democrats wouldn't do that. something like that would trigger a civil war... the crazy guys on the other side would not mind though. they have all the ar-15s

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Biden, right. Look, I don't think the guy's going anywhere unless Dr. Jill tells him to drop out.

M'kay, so apparently that is that with that. Tell you what: if Biden wins, we're gonna go through the whole rigged/stolen bullshit talk again (only worse), so fuckit, let's steal it for real this time. Same diff!

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

M'kay, so apparently that is that with that. Tell you what: if Biden wins, we're gonna go through the whole rigged/stolen bullshit talk again (only worse), so fuckit, let's steal it for real this time. Same diff!

i was watching copa américa, canada beat venezuela on penalties, it was an entertaining low-quality match

so i missed this shitshow! and im glad

"the almighty"? well now the fucker has lost it. proof he has bad judgment?i don't mean about his presumed religiosity, but his ego...

im glad he has good staffers because otherwise...

i don't think we're gonna face any stolen election scenario. oh i see what you're saying hahahaha

i don't think he can

jill biden on the cover of vogue! jeezus haploid fucking christ

no i mean, no, they've lost their last marbles

i'll wait to watch the video in the morning, or i'll get nightmares

we're gonna get covfefe'd...

[Genteel Death 2]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

of course democrats wouldn't do that. something like that would trigger a civil war... the crazy guys on the other side would not mind though. they have all the ar-15s

I very much doubt that a civil war would ensue from that. Street scuffles, maybe.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death 2

I very much doubt that a civil war would ensue from that. Street scuffles, maybe.

i don't know, maybe i'm paranoid. but if biden were to cloak himself in presidential immunity to start acting like a banana republic dictator, disappearing people and political enemies in the name of "official acts" , i think even his own people would rise against him. i am not sure about the militsry, but i think there could be statewide insurrections. texas for example is armed to the teeth even if you don't count the military bases and personnel in it. and they have money and power and a huge population, unlike in 1860

on the other hand if a republican did something like that his fanatics would just look the other way as they have done previously. nixon would not have to quit in disgrace today. and the democrats would probably do nothing except maybe scream and cry in public places and maybe loot random businesses. that would be the street scuffles

this is a really weird time. weird as fuck. here, and in europe... i don't like it

curiously the uk has bucked the trend! you're not getting farage as pm but a centrist (corbynism is dead). is that ahead of the curve, or behind the curve? i'm not sure... i hope it's ahead of the curve and a return back from extremes is the future for everyone

[!@#$%!]

fuuuucking relieved that the left is winning in france! jeezus fucking christ, a huge bullet has been dodged today

(their current proposals would damage their economy though if implemented)

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

What the jokers said in 2016. In ended in a putsch.

To be clear, I'm not saying "whoever is in a 3rd/4th party here". I'm saying remove Trump from the ticket, remove Biden from the ticket, put in other, ideally younger, people we can vote on, major parties included.

[Antagon]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

fuuuucking relieved that the left is winning in france! jeezus fucking christ, a huge bullet has been dodged today

(their current proposals would damage their economy though if implemented)

It was some good news for a change. Things are looking grim enough. Good to see a few countries bucking the trend.

[_tunic_]

the new right-wing fraction Patriots For Europe for the European Parliament founded by Hungarian prime-minister Orban is a bit scary to me. The Dutch PVV has joined amongst others, the Belgian right-wingers and the French Rassemblement National of Le Pen most probably join as well.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

To be clear, I'm not saying "whoever is in a 3rd/4th party here". I'm saying remove Trump from the ticket, remove Biden from the ticket, put in other, ideally younger, people we can vote on, major parties included.

At this point, the only entity who can replace Joe Biden is... DARK BRANDON!

 

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by _tunic_

the new right-wing fraction Patriots For Europe for the European Parliament founded by Hungarian prime-minister Orban is a bit scary to me. The Dutch PVV has joined amongst others, the Belgian right-wingers and the French Rassemblement National of Le Pen most probably join as well.

"Patriots", right. Buncha motherfucking pieces of shit.