I haven’t read the Bellingcat piece yet, but this kind of behavior by Musk I take as an endorsement, so I am passing the link along. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/07/09/russian-missile-identified-in-kyiv-childrens-hospital-attack/
Screenshot of a tweet by Jimmy Rushton, showing that X/Twitter blocks clicking a Bellingcat link with a “Warning: this link may be unsafe” splash.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika I would like to see Biden prosecuted over any actions that are plausibly alleged to be illegal abuses of power. I don’t think those prosecutions would succeed, because I think Biden’s actions (largely inactions) have been well within his discretion. But if there really has been an illegal abuse of power, then he absolutely should be held accountable for it.
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika baseless prosecutions can be dismissed. it’s hard to win a criminal prosecution against a person with resources to defend themselves, even when the accused is guilty, let alone when the prosecution is baseless.
but there’s no remedy for a lawless president immune from prosecution.
we just disagree, pretty strongly, about the balance of harms. 1/
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika and the balance of benefits, since a President can go after his predecessor with full immunity even if the prosecution is malicious, He just has to dig up dirt from before or after the predecessor’s term so the immunity for official acts no longer applies. even the revenge prosecutions the decision purports to remedy is not actually remedied. /fin
"Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law."
— Chief Justice John Roberts
United States Supreme Court
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika Note that the Circuit Court, which heard the case prior to the Supremes, took the view several of you (at least early in our conversation) suggest this decision does: that if the President's action was beyond the law, it could not be protected.
But the Supreme Court does not endorse the Circuit's view. It reviewed that case, and overturned it.
Text: From this distinction, the D. C. Circuit concluded that the “separation of powers doctrine, as expounded in Marbury and its progeny, necessarily permits the Judiciary to oversee the federal criminal prosecution of a former Pres- ident for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former President has allegedly acted in de- fiance of the Congress’s laws.” 91 F. 4th, at 1191. In the court’s view, the fact that Trump’s actions “allegedly vio- lated generally applicable criminal laws” meant that those actions “were not properly within the scope of his lawful discretion.” Id., at 1192. The D. C. Circuit thus concluded that Trump had “no structural immunity from the charges in the Indictment.” Ibid.
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika if you think Trump's prosecutions are unfounded and malicious, this decision will prevent similar prosecutions of ex-presidents, but it certainly won't prevent unfounded or malicious prosecutions of anyone else. 1/
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika (actually, it won't even prevent unfounded or malicious prosecutions of ex-presidents based on ginned up allegations about pre- or post-Presidential unofficial acts! so if you really think weaponized prosecution of political rivals is the problem — which John Roberts plainly does! — this decision narrows the target but increases the range!) 2/
@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika (it may thus be ineffective on its own terms!) /fin
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika it nips the whole thing in the bud, but only for the President and those he pardons, and irrespective of whether the President did the crime or not. obviously, without prosecution there is also no punishment. it nips it all away, only for the President and those He pardons.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika it does not. it grants immunities to the President (and anyone He pardons). none to the rest of us.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika it prevents Trump from prosecuting Biden, with or without basis.
it enables Trump or Biden to prosecute anyone and everyone else, also with or without basis.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika no. democracy does not mean near complete consensus or paralysis. that’s tyranny by the veto power of any small minorities. 1/
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika we created an antidemocratic tyranny on purpose (although we did not expect it to bind quite as strongly as it has in recent decades) to lock-in the form of democracy the Constitution establishes. we made amending the Constitution antidemocratically hard. 2/
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika bur Marbury v Madison gave us another way to amend the Constitution, through judicial reinterpretation. And that requires a mere majority among nine imperfect, ideological, corruptible individuals. /fin
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika i mean, yeah, i agree, this puts us all at risk.
but the enforceability of criminal law crumbles only for the President here. the rest of us are granted no immunity from the accreted skein of criminal law.
@realcaseyrollins living here? growing up as a quite proud and nationalistic American and watching everything about the country that i was so proud of get compromised, undone, undermined? following an arc of history that seemed long but to bend towards justice say “psych” and pull a curlicue?
@realcaseyrollins here, largely? everywhere? i read as widely as i can. read everybody, fully trust nobody, make the best evaluations you can.
@realcaseyrollins i don’t know, don’t know for sure what we are doing. who wins the election matters — i am more worried about some kings than about others. but until this is remedied, we are naked. we are very likely to become a nation lawlessly dominated by an entrenched executive, like Russia or China. what sucks about the US going rogue is that nowhere is really immune from our influence. Europe and South America might be last bastions of liberalism, but fragile.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika I don’t understand why, if the issue is criminal law as a whole is such a terrible mess, it should crumble only for the President of the United States while the rest of us remain on the hook.
That seems like a very particular, engineered outcome, not the result of sone unwieldy chaotic accretion over the centuries.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika there’s the kind of democracy that requires a majority to be on-board, and the kind that requires consensus, all 350 million of us to be on-board. The latter is “democracy” in name only. In reality it is paralysis.
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika The Supreme Court just said, quite plainly and openly, that the Constitution, not merely the law, allows the President to do bad things. All we can do is fix the Constitution (or the Court, that rewrites the Constitution by interpreting it).
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika Criminal law almost always cares about motive. Mens rea. Please tell me where any act you could call “democratic” removed consideration of motive from criminal law in the case of the President, but no one else. Please. I think the Supreme Court made it up all by itself. 1/
@volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @Hyolobrika Yes, we can democratically remedy this, but only by a Constitutional anendment, a bar so difficult, that requires such unanimity + consensus that it’s been decades since we’ve pulled one off. (Or, much more likely, by expanding this Court and having a do-over.)
The Supreme Court made this up. Whole cloth. Nothing in existing law prefigured this decision, especially the motive bit. The whole legal world was shocked by it. /fin
if the Supreme Court wants a "vigorous", "energetic" executive, couldn't it have just read into the Constitution a requirement that the President be under 70?
i mean, they're originalists, right, all about looking back on what things meant at the founding.
well, what was retirement age in 1776?
Social media is the invention of that horrible twisted-metal traffic accident you somehow can't look away from, but on a global scale.
