Thanks again, Ralph.

@3, +1 on this. Biden has allowed 10 million migrants to enter this country through a loophole in our asylum law, wreaking havoc on cities across this country which struggle to provide social services to our own citizens. He only considered it a problem well into the fourth year of his presidency once it became a political problem for him. If there's one issue that Trump has him on, it's this, and he is fully to blame for it. It is for this reason that Biden was already skating on thin ice prior to his disastrous debate performance. Now he has fallen through the ice, and he and his enablers want to drag the whole country down with him.

What the Democrats need is a candidate who is not linked to this disastrous (that word again) border policy and who can talk tough on the border without being anti-immigrant.

Kinda weird that Geekwire had a story last Tuesday about the dismantling of the Living Computers Museum (and two followup stories in the follow days), but you decided to link to today's Seattle Times article on their soft paywall site.

Is Geekwire seen as some enemy to The Stranger?

@3 The far right isn't going to stop immigration in France or the US, Our societies don't bear enough children to replace themselves, which is the primary reason why the proportion of immigrants in our mist increases. Demographics say that we and our economies desperately need migrant workers yesterday, today and tomorrow as shown by many sectors like construction, agriculture, services, food industry, etc ... Without migrants our economy would collapse. This is why Meloni (Italian prime minister with a fascist pedigree) has made deals with business to allow migrants to come in the country despite campaign promises to clamp down on immigration.

Do you know what racists hate even more than migrants who have no intention of assimilating? They hate most migrants who have well integrated and are successful.

@4 change the channel or even better kill your tv

Happy Canada Day!

averagebob @6 and @7, two quick questions.

What username did you previously post on this blog as?

Who puts you up to spout these standard-issue misleading statements and strawman arguments?

“…what with SCOTUS giving presidents carte blanche to do whatever atrocities they feel like and having no ramifications.”

Please stop hyperventilating (and set down the bong, too). That’s not what the ruling said or implied. Legislators have had absolute immunity for legislative acts, and no immunity for all other acts, for as long as there has been a United States:

“legislative immunity”

“A legal doctrine that protects legislators from being sued for all actions taken in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity. The purpose of legislative immunity is to ensure that the legislative function may be performed independently without fear of outside interference.

“Legislative immunity is granted to Congress by the Speech or Debate Clause in Article I of the Constitution and has been extended to state and local legislators through the federal common law. Additionally, 43 states have speech or debate clauses in their own constitutions. Legislative immunity also extends to officials outside the legislative branch participating in the legislative process. For example, a mayor presenting a budget to the city council. However, acts that are unrelated to a legislator’s duties (e.g. defamatory statements made during a press conference) and acts that occur without lawful authority (e.g. unconstitutional procedures for enacting legislation or a subcommittee investigator illegally seizing documents without a subpoena) are not immune.“

(https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/legislative_immunity)

@6- exactly. Americans on the right have gotten lazy and entitled and can’t stand to see immigrants get ahead by working harder than they themselves are willing to.

Ironically, almost all the white people in this country are here because their ancestors came here under even harder conditions than what immigrants face now, knowing they were likely never going home again and working their butts off to put todays population in the place it is now.

And now, their descendants can’t even be bothered to try to retrain or move to a new city when the coal mine closes or whatever. I think their immigrant ancestors would puke if they saw what is happening now.

@8- all those drive-by stabbings sure demonstrate that guns are no problem, amiright?

@12 Who are we going to believe, a sitting Supreme Court justice and the good folks over at SCOTUSblog, or Some Dude on the Internet? I’m gonna go with the former.

Trump would have absolute immunity for his pardon power, so he can take bribes for pardons without fear. He can also ask someone to murder his opponent and then pardon them, again without fear.

Other official acts are presumed to be under immunity, and courts can’t question his motives. Ordering Seal Team Six to assassinate an opponent? Presumed immunity because directing the military is a constitutional function. The president’s powers are broad enough that this is a far bigger deal than legislative immunity.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/07/justices-rule-trump-has-some-immunity-from-prosecution/

@15: “…Some Dude on the Internet?”

A hyperventilating writer at the Stranger is the very definition of ‘Some Dude on the Internet’. ;-)

“Trump would have absolute immunity for his pardon power, so he can take bribes for pardons without fear.”

Thus ending the centuries-old, absolutely spotless record of US Presidents on end-of-term pardons, e.g. Pres. G. H. W. Bush pardoning everyone who could have testified against him on Iran-Contra.

“Ordering Seal Team Six to assassinate an opponent?”

Please quote where your cited source agrees with this interpretation.

@16, it’s directly from 30 page dissent, and she’s right. The test the majority lays out gives absolute immunity to anything connected to a core constitutional function, including being Commander and Chief of the U.S. armed forces, and presumed immunity for anything connected to an official act connected to a statutory function or authority that a prosecutor would now have to demonstrate does not have an “official act” connection. We now have the green light from the Supreme Court for the broadest possible abuse and consolidation of executive power while on the cusp of electing the person most likely to abuse it in 50 years.

Time to cue up ‘Springtime for Hitler’, as fascism is trendy just everywhere!

@17: Your cited source contains no link to that dissent, and no quote from it referencing the President’s power over the military (which, btw, is not absolute).

Re: #s 1 & 2: I see we're back to the granddaddy of all pathetic stolen election claims. Helps keep the endless wars going, I suppose.

@19 The Sotomayor dissent does in fact use the exact phrase "Orders the Navy's Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival? Immune." I didn't find it particulary believeable, and it's obviously in the dissent and not in the majority opinion, but it's in there!

@19- I’m sure the dissent is publicly available. Maybe even on SCOTUSBLOG. I bet you can find it. As for the Presidents power over the military, now that he’s immune for pretty much everything within his constitutional powers, he would appear to be able to order pretty much whatever he wants. Biden really ought to be considering pre-emptively whacking Fat Donald and most of his fluffers. Hey- John Roberts said it was OK!

@2 Nader was so long ago as to be irrelevant to this discussion, and more Hillary supporters voted for McCain than Bernie supporters voted Trump. Obama won anyway because he was a competent candidate. Thanks are due to Hillary for blowing her one job (get elected), RBG for not just retiring at 80 years old so Obama could replace her, and Biden for not even trying to pack the Court to combat Republicans' blatant gamesmanship. Democrats got played like a piano and we're the ones who are going to suffer.

@23- you are correct that it applies to Biden. I look forward to his appropriate use of his new powers to wipe out the fascists that are trying to take over the country.

@8- your comment read like the usual “that guy got stabbed that time so obviously we don’t need to regulate guns” argument we see periodically. If that’s not what you meant I withdraw the comment.

@25- 100% agree Dems have been WAY too nice. Time to play twice as dirty as the Nazis who have taken over the GOP.

To put a slight spin on Nat’s quote, so now the progressives must decide if they want to back the left and win or support the fascists. Wonder which tack they'll take.

Or does that logic only apply in France?

@22, @24: That’s nice. If you want to do @15’s work for him, go right ahead. (More context than a pull-quote might be nice, while you’re at it.)

Under this logic, Trump could have sent “Seal Team Six” to kill Mike Pence on January 6th. (We’ll see if the lower court agrees, which I kinda sorta doubt they will.)

Trying to overthrow the federal government of the United States so you can continue squatting in the White House, pardoning all of your criminal friends, enriching yourself and your criminal cronies by selling confidential information to anyone who wants it and attempting to have your Vice President and the Speaker of the House murdered are NOT OFFICIAL ACTS.

But apparently murdering over one million Americans with COVID because you as president said (officially) that COVID would "just disappear" IS an OFFICIAL ACT. As is packing the formerly supreme court with criminal partisan hacks who will burn the country down for you.

It seems incredibly unlikely Biden would be able to serve to serve out 4 more years, so if we're getting Kamala either way, why not just switch out for her out now?

Re: Seal Team Six. There is a straightforward path to immunity. Acting as commander in chief is clearly within the scope of a president’s official duties. As is using the military to prevent a clear and present danger to the United States. All Trump would have to do is declare that X is a clear and present danger, where X is anything from Biden the man to voting in the election, and he is entirely within the scope of his official duties. And for that, John Roberts says that he should be assumed to have immunity.

I apologize most profusely in advance for my present inability to provide sources in triplicate that might satisfy the most inquisitive among you. I happen to be working off a small screen, which makes that difficult. So I most kindly and humbly ask you to look it up.

Two shootings?
All those gun laws that have gone into effect over the years and it hasn’t slowed crime one tiny bit.

And as a little extra something on this exceptionally brown sandwich of an opinion, Roberts also said that you can’t question a president’s motives when determining whether immunity applies. So if Trump 2.0 says he had Biden shot because he was a danger to the country, nobody can say otherwise.

@33,

"The National Association of Mental Illness and other mental health professionals would be the first to argue that they can't predict who will become violent with a firearm, another weapon, or without a weapon, and they don't want that responsibility."

The freaking American Psychiatric Association firmly disagrees with you, as noted here...

https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/apa-statement-on-firearm-violence#:~:text=APA%20is%20committed%20to%20federal,due%20to%20firearm%2Drelated%20violence.

...wherein they state that "APA is committed to federal efforts to protect our youth and all citizens from gun violence and implores Congress to enact firearm safety legislation that will promote safe communities and reduce morbidity and mortality due to firearm-related violence. We stand ready to work with Congress on sensible legislation that increases research into firearm violence, requires background checks, waiting periods, safe storage of firearms, and that allows physicians to make clinically appropriate inquiries regarding access to firearms."

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm having a real hard time trying to make up my mind deciding who to trust here; the largest and most trusted association of psychiatric professionals in the United States or some jackass guy on the Internet who works in real estate development.

@3 and @4, Biden had an immigration deal in place with house republicans, which had enough votes to pass, but Trump told Mike Johnson not to bring it to a vote because it would give Biden a win and it would allow the Republicans to continue to use it as an issue against him, particularly with people that are not aware of that move like you all are.

The autocratic apologists are in full force today, but Sotomayor's dissent truly nails it. The majority's ruling makes clear that Presidents are immune for actions taken while in office connected to an enumerated power (which does unequivocally include command of the United States armed forces and the power of the pardon), and have a presumption of immunity for anything they can connect to an "official" act or that has a statutory or executive branch department connection with the burden on prosecutors to prove otherwise. The court has punted on this topic repeatedly and finally they have confirmed that a country that was intended to not have a King does in fact have a King, albeit term limited ones, they still can't be held accountable.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

Ah, my bad everybody. As it turns out, and as @42 makes clear, some real estate guy living in suburban Seattle is obviously far more knowledgeable with regard to psychiatric disorders and treatment regimens than the otherwise fine and (presumably) intelligent scientists, doctors and PhD's at the American Psychiatric Association.

@11 Given the dangers and hardship involved, the immense majority of illegal immigrants from Central and Latin America aren't leaving their homelands by choice but because they have nothing to lose (~60% are from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela). Conservatives say that it is not our problem but it isn;t true. We have to take major responsibility for the causes of immigration from those countries subject to centuries of the Truman and Monroe Doctrines, trade treaties from more recent times and climate change with attending drought that profoundly affected farmers in Central America.

We can't wage all out economic warfare on some countries, then complain about the constant stream of destitute people emanating from those regions. The only effective way in the long term to prevent people risking their very lives while immigrating is to promote sensible economic development in their homeland instead of having predatory international finance bleed them dry. You reap what you sow.

An informed people is an absolute requirement of a democracy (Jefferson). Infotainment as a vehicle for advertising ala Berlusconi doesn't inform anybody, it only makes money for investors. When the very same people who own the press are the same as those who own congress, the message largely becomes propaganda. By the time half of the people vote for fascism, it's not democracy anymore. Humans have been there before so it is not entirely uncharted territory.

@36 It's funny how people like you alternatively claim that Nader, the Greens, etc amount to nearly nothing but then you accuse them of being responsible for huge outcomes like determining policy for decades to come via the supreme court. It's not very coherent you know.

@31 and @32 xina +2 for the WIN!!!

I feel just sick for the fate of this country and the rest of the world.