Donald Trump

[Dax777]

It's not about your beliefs. It's an objective fact.

You wouldn't know objective fact if it slapped you in the face.

He sat twiddling his thumbs whilst a mob he whipped up attempted to murder his own vice president and half of Congress.

Yikes!

You can't come on here crowing about Biden's cognitive decline and then ignore Trump rambling about windmills, electric sharks and talking as if Hannibal Lecter is/was a real person and then be taken seriously.

Im not crowing about Biden's decline. Just pointing out the obvious that his decline wasn't an impediment in your's and the eyes of many here. But somehow you think Trump's should...

Forgive me for not finding that convincing.

He's a thin-skinned racist, serial rapist and dangerous mad man, and you show him the same devotion as a battered wife with Stockholm syndrome.

He is thin skinned alright. He isn't a racist. At least not by any standard that won't apply to Biden and other Democrats in the past.

Again, saying I show him devotion speaks to your delusion.

I simply don't agree with your claims about him. And fortunately for me, here in America that's actually allowed ) at least so far). I am free to not agree with your views, ideas and opinions.

And even more importantly, I get to exercise that right to vote as I wish regardless of what you think or want. It is one of the beauty of America.and the West ( at least for now). And if you are an American, you too can freely vote your conscience and belief and then we'd both live with the consequences of the results of those votes

I'm totally happy and comfortable with that. No matter the outcome. Too many here seem to struggle with this. In spite of a constant lip service to the idea of 'saving democracy.'

 

[Dax777]

According to the decision, for example, "immunity extends to official discussions between the President and his Attorney General."

Yes, Sometimes

Under this standard, Nixon/staff conversations about covering up Watergate could have (and probably would have) been claimed as "official acts" by the Nixon White House.

Of course Nixon would have argued that, just like Trump argued here that he has total immunity.

And the Supreme Court ruled that he doesn't have total immunity.

I'd say it's obvious on its face that a President has some immunity. The SC majority just simply points out that President has absolute immunity for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And 2) he gets the presumption of immunity on official acts, but 3) has no immunity for unofficial acts.

Having the presumption of immunity doesn't mean he can't be prosecuted. It simply means the burden would be on the prosecution to show the act was illegal and not in the interest of the nation. Covering up Watergate, surely would fall under that category works it not?

He didn't have that, so he used the "national security" line of defense to delay release of the Smoking Gun and other tapes in order to hamper the evidentiary gathering process by prosecutors, claiming discussions with Haldeman et. al. were "confidential".

But then we have the following problem. From the USC transcript in USA vs. Nixon --this is Justice Marshall speaking to Nixon's defense counsel James St. Clair during oral arguments.

QUESTION: Well, don't you think it would be
important if a judge and the President were discussing how
they were going to make appointments for money?

MR. ST, CLAIR: I'm sorry, sir, I didn’t understand
your question.

QUESTION: Don't you think it would be important in a
hypothetical case if an about-to-be-appointed judge was
making a deal with the President for money?

MR. ST. CLAIR: Absolutely.

QUESTION: But under yours it couldn’t be. In public
interest you couldn't release [a tape of] that.

MR. ST. CLAIR: I would think that that could not
be released, if it were a confidential communication.
If the President did appoint such an individual, the remedy
is clear, the remedy is he should be impeached.

QUESTION: How are you going to impeach him if
you don't know about it?

MR. ST. CLAIR: Well, if you know about it, then you
can state the case. If you don't, know about it, you don't
have it.

QUESTION: So there you are. You're on the prongs of a dilemma, huh?

MR. ST. CLAIR: No, I don't think so.

QUESTION: If you know the President is doing
something wrong, you can impeach him; but the only way you
can find out is this way; you can't impeach him, so you
don't impeach him. You lose me some place along there.

{Laughter}.

Even Barrett's concurrence brought up this problem.

Thanks for this memory lane review. I haven't read these in over 20 years. I probably should go back and read stuff like this as id probably see it differently now than I did 20-25 years ago.

So the ramifications are that the decision makes it very easy for a rogue President to claim that criminal activity outside the scope of powers granted by the Constitution (since his actions as President are "presumptively constitutional") are "official acts" and as such dramatically impact a prosecutor's ability to pursue evidence to prove otherwise.

No. Criminal activity that benefits the President solely will inherently be unofficial. Now discussions with other officials in his cabinet may carry the presumption of an official act. But if the discussion is about exiling Dax coz he intends to vote 3rd party, those facts would put the act outside of official acts.

Had the Court narrowly and specifically defined "official acts" then that would be different. But if they had, the ramifications of the case almost certainly would have left the barn door open for Smith and ended up being a pro-prosecutorial decision

So you are criticizing the Supreme Court here for not making Law?

Anyway, this seems to be the Cruz of the matter. It seems many are not happy Smith has to go back and argue the merits of what does or does not fit into the official act bucket. Therefore delaying his prosecution.

I'll proffer a guess here, Trump discussing with Pence whether he'd vote to stop the certification will not be ruled to fall under an official act. Even if it is within the President's official capacity to discuss matters with his vice.

It’s bad law period regardless of who the President is.

Fair enough. Wed agree to disagree. I think on the balance it was the best they could do.

Never thought I'd see a day when a conservative court was so anti-prosecutorial.

I don't think that's what's happening here. But agree to disagree.

P.s: Thanks for this. Far more enjoyable than abuses and insults from most of t of e crowd here.

The season can't come soon enough so I can disappear again as most here would want :)

 

[SebastianBlue]

Well, I don't believe that to be true.

Yes. But the point I'm making still stands. When the SC delivers an opinion, they often just consider what's in front of them. And no matter what decision they make it would inherently leave some questions unanswered. Answering those questions is often why claimants bring cases. Almost no one would bring a case on issues that a clear and decided already. Such cases would be dismissed by the lower courts.

That's the point I was making. That there are unanswered questions here is not an issue. I mean other than the fact that it won't allow the prosecution to proceed prior to the election.

If there is a case here, there's still be a case whether it can be rushed now or made follow the normal process that may not suit some politically.

What you have just equivocated is the Trump and MAGA strategy of pushing the federal prosecutions out past the election in hopes that he will win and then be in a position to completely shutdown the normal course of justice.

Anyone that doesn’t see that as one of the most brazen, cynical, and anti-democratic acts of any person holding high office in the history of the United States is either a fool, an idiot, or a co-conspirator.

Possibly all three.

This is of course ignoring that SCOTUS actually undertook a massive power grab not only for Trump and MAGA, but also for themselves, by crafting their Presidential Immunity decision to not actually define the test for determining if an act carried out by the POTUS is “official” or not.

Thus, every prosecution of the president in the short-to-medium term will have to pass through them to determine individual actions as “official” or “unofficial”, allowing them to continue to rule arbitrarily, and likely along ludicrously rationalised right and far-right ideological lines (no doubt quoting morally corrupt judges from the 1800s), ensuring Biden enjoys absolutely no new powers, whilst likely allowing Trump to get off Scott-free, at least in federal charges (and possibly beyond if he wins the presidency and begins to act with relative impunity).

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Well, I don't believe that to be true.

Yes. But the point I'm making still stands. When the SC delivers an opinion, they often just consider what's in front of them. And no matter what decision they make it would inherently leave some questions unanswered. Answering those questions is often why claimants bring cases. Almost no one would bring a case on issues that a clear and decided already. Such cases would be dismissed by the lower courts.

That's the point I was making. That there are unanswered questions here is not an issue. I mean other than the fact that it won't allow the prosecution to proceed prior to the election.

If there is a case here, there's still be a case whether it can be rushed now or made follow the normal process that may not suit some politically.

But they didn’t decide what was in front of them. They simply ruled that the President has immunity for ALL official acts. They added a burden of proof on top of ALL potential future prosecutions of ANY President — not only must an act be criminal within the code, but now commissioned in an unofficial capacity which is up to the prosecution to prove and the lower courts to decide (and since the guidance is so limited, probably up ultimately up to the USC to decide instance-by-instance later on). And I wonder how such a standard might be leveraged later on to cover other elected officials / executive branch members who act “officially.”

Anyhow I answered your question about ramifications I hope. Unclear to me how conservatives could possibly pleased about the hands of prosecuting attorneys being tied so tightly.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

What you have just equivocated is the Trump and MAGA strategy of pushing the federal prosecutions out past the election in hopes that he will win and then be in a position to completely shutdown the normal course of justice.

Anyone that doesn’t see that as one of the most brazen, cynical, and anti-democratic acts of any person holding high office in the history of the United States is either a fool, an idiot, or a co-conspirator.

Possibly all three.

This is potentially the possible outcome but I am not even arguing that point — I am arguing that the ruling itself is anti-prosecution of crime, which it fundamentally is (even Barrett seems to think so), but no conservative I’ve heard has seemed to call this out as an incredibly liberal, activist decision.

I already brought up Watergate but I might well have brought up Teapot Dome. If the burden of proof is first that a crime be committed in the charge of only unofficial duties, S of I Fall might very well have argued he was immune from prosecution as the bribes he took were in the service of his official duties (I.e. leasing out oilfields to ensure the Armed Services always had a ready supply of fuel).

 

[SebastianBlue]

This is potentially the possible outcome but I am not even arguing that point — I am arguing that the ruling itself is anti-prosecution of crime, which it fundamentally is (even Barrett thinks so), but no conservative I’ve heard has seemed to call this out as an incredibly liberal, activist decision.

I understood your point, I was responding to Dax’s obfuscation of one of the likely (destructive) outcomes, which itself contradicts his stated position of the decision enabling the due course of justice, which is absolutely false.

The decision actually enables the further bastardisation and corruption of the justice system.

 

[pudge]

and then we'd both live with the consequences of the results of those votes

I'm totally happy and comfortable with that. No matter the outcome. Too many here seem to struggle with this. In spite of a constant lip service to the idea of 'saving democracy.'

Yes, it's hard to see why folk might think such a thing what with the last election result having been so graciously accepted by the fine American people.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Yes, Sometimes

Of course Nixon would have argued that, just like Trump argued here that he has total immunity.

And the Supreme Court ruled that he doesn't have total immunity.

I'd say it's obvious on its face that a President has some immunity. The SC majority just simply points out that President has absolute immunity for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And 2) he gets the presumption of immunity on official acts, but 3) has no immunity for unofficial acts.

Having the presumption of immunity doesn't mean he can't be prosecuted. It simply means the burden would be on the prosecution to show the act was illegal and not in the interest of the nation. Covering up Watergate, surely would fall under that category works it not?


Thanks for this memory lane review. I haven't read these in over 20 years. I probably should go back and read stuff like this as id probably see it differently now than I did 20-25 years ago.

No. Criminal activity that benefits the President solely will inherently be unofficial. Now discussions with other officials in his cabinet may carry the presumption of an official act. But if the discussion is about exiling Dax coz he intends to vote 3rd party, those facts would put the act outside of official acts.



So you are criticizing the Supreme Court here for not making Law?

Anyway, this seems to be the Cruz of the matter. It seems many are not happy Smith has to go back and argue the merits of what does or does not fit into the official act bucket. Therefore delaying his prosecution.

I'll proffer a guess here, Trump discussing with Pence whether he'd vote to stop the certification will not be ruled to fall under an official act. Even if it is within the President's official capacity to discuss matters with his vice.


Fair enough. Wed agree to disagree. I think on the balance it was the best they could do.


I don't think that's what's happening here. But agree to disagree.

P.s: Thanks for this. Far more enjoyable than abuses and insults from most of t of e crowd here.

The season can't come soon enough so I can disappear again as most here would want :)

The point is the additional burden on the prosecution to prove that an act is or isn’t official when (a) it is as yet largely undefined and (b) evidence gathering can be shielded via other measures available to the President and not to normal citizenry is bad for crime-fighting.

If you believe it should be harder for prosecutors to prosecute criminals that’s fine. It’s just not a conservative principle, historically. But neither is being anti-gun control, so whatevs.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

You wouldn't know objective fact if it slapped you in the face.

You don't do irony do you? Well at least you've assimilated well into your country.

Yikes!


Im not crowing about Biden's decline. Just pointing out the obvious that his decline wasn't an impediment in your's and the eyes of many here. But somehow you think Trump's should...

Forgive me for not finding that convincing.


He is thin skinned alright. He isn't a racist. At least not by any standard that won't apply to Biden and other Democrats in the past.

Again, saying I show him devotion speaks to your delusion.

Absolute bullshit. The problem you have is the fact that you have replied to me as if I'm part of a homogeneous blob. Long before Biden dropped out of the race I criticised the fact he hadn't lined up a replacement. Also posted this.

Excluding convicted criminals you are singularly the worst poster on this forum. I wouldn't trust you to pet-sit a hamster without holding it hostage or auctioning it off to the local teenage psycho.

Biden is already encouraging it.

Short of the USA actually sending troops to assist them how could it get any worse?

Hopefully Trump dies on the toilet and Biden has a stroke before November.

I simply don't agree with your claims about him. And fortunately for me, here in America that's actually allowed ) at least so far). I am free to not agree with your views, ideas and opinions.

So you are happy voting for someone who molests women in changing rooms?

And even more importantly, I get to exercise that right to vote as I wish regardless of what you think or want. It is one of the beauty of America.and the West ( at least for now). And if you are an American, you too can freely vote your conscience and belief and then we'd both live with the consequences of the results of those votes

I'm totally happy and comfortable with that. No matter the outcome. Too many here seem to struggle with this. In spite of a constant lip service to the idea of 'saving democracy.'

I have no ambition to be an American. I'm not even that arsed about visiting there. You're fortunate to live in a place that cancels out your insane vote and shields you from the consequences of your delusions.

 

[Phil1]

@Dax777 you’ve been a shitstain on this forum for far too long.