President Biden needs to use those tools that have just been given to him by the SC re immunity. I was disappointed to

[SheilaAnn]

hear his declaration that he wouldn't use them and I have to ask why? We are in desperate times right now, this is not the moment to be
wishy-washy in fighting this debacle. Don't misunderstand, I like the President but just wish he would act tougher, take advantage of what has just been handed to him and do it with gusto. You know the other side would it if the situation were reversed. C'mon Joe, let them know you mean business.

[unblock]

1. Donnie is a criminal and Biden is not. This should be the defining issue of the campaign.

Why on earth would we give that up by bringing our candidate down to their level?

I don't want our advantage to be yeah well your guy got convicted.

[CincyDem]

6. There is nothing criminal to using the full powers of the office as defined by the highest court in the land.

[emulatorloo]

9. Trump is ethically and morally corrupt, and the highest court in our land is dead wrong.

I for one am happy to have an ethical leader like Joe Biden.

[CincyDem]

12. You can argue all you want that SCOTUS is wrong.

That’s everyone’s prerogative. That said, it is what it is.

There is absolutely nothing unethical about following the court’s ruling. In fact…one could argue that ignoring the court’s opinion is placing oneself above the law.

All I’m saying it take the win and use it to protect democracy. Nothing illegal, nothing unethical…just out in the new territory of powers clearly defined by the Supreme Court.

[CrispyQ]

21. I totally agree!!

He took an oath to protect & defend the Constitution so he should use every power at his disposal to do that, even if he finds it distasteful. Declare Project 2025 an anti-Constitutional manifesto & declare anyone associated with it a terrorist & arrest them & jail them. IDK if this is possible or even a good course of action but taking no action seems stupid beyond belief.

He's spoken out against expanding or reforming the court & yes, we don't have the numbers to do that now, but why not campaign on that? Assure people if you get me the numbers in the senate we'll work on SCOTUS reform. But his campaign has stated that he's still reluctant because he deeply respects our institutions. Be prepared to respect them from jail if Trump wins or steals this election because it's so close key states sue & end up in front of SCOTUS.

"When they go low we go high" has not served us well. It's time to fling some dirt in our opponent's eyes, do something totally unexpected & bold.

[unblock]

23. What exactly would you have him do?

It's not clear what they'll consider an "official act" and I strongly suspect their definitions and opinions would change based if it's Donnie or Biden who is testing it.

Mostly I think this is license for Donnie to accept bribes for pardons and appointments. I'm not sure how Biden protects democracy by doing this, now am I convinced Biden would survive politically if he tried.

[emulatorloo]

27. See bigtree's post below for how things might play out practically speaking.

[CincyDem]

30. Save democracy and play the cards as they're dealt in the future.

If I read his/her post correctly, it says don’t leverage these new powers because the courts will shut him down. That’s different from now how ?

Pre-compliance, the art of complying with a decision not yet made, is a hall mark of societies being overrun with fascism. They adhere to the old rules while a complicit ruling class runs over them with a steam roller. Failure to use these newly conferred powers because someday a court “might” disagree is pre-compliance and it’s just pouring oil on the already slippery slope to fascism/dictatorship.

Once Trump has control of the DoJ, it’s game over. You think he’ll hesitate to put his thumb on the AG given the SCOTUS ruling says Oval-DoJ interaction is okie dokie and at no time can the motives for that interaction be inspected.

As always…power…use it or lose it.

[unblock]

11. Politically, Biden would be toast if he did something that would be illegal but for this latest ruling.

If he starts doing Donnie stuff, people will say why not just vote for the real thing then,

[stopdiggin]

16. you advocate using 'powers' to do illegal things?

I don't see any other way to construe what you are saying

[CincyDem]

20. Absolutely not what I'm saying.

How many times have you heard the administration say “we disagree with the court but we will adhere to its ruling”. No different here.

It’s like the speed limit used to be 55 and now it’s 70. I’m not advocating exceeding 70 but if my daughter is in the back seat in distress and we’re heading to the hospital…I’m not throttling back at 55 because it’s what the speed limit used to be.

Democracy is in the back seat, in distress, and the speed limit has been change. Don’t ya think we would be using every mph we can…legally?

[unblock]

33. I hear you and agree with what you're trying to get at in theory, but practice matters

So sure, we should know all the weapons in our arsenal and if you court just handed us one, we should consider using it.

But what exactly? Which federal law that we thought a president was bound by that the court now says a president isn't bound by should Biden take advantage of?

Basically he can get away with accepting bribes now. How does that help us?

What if the court came out and said Biden could declare a political opponent to be a terrorist and have him shot on sight.

Are you saying he should?

In theory what you're saying sounds great but in this case, the newly available weapons are mostly just the tools of corruption. I'm not sure how Biden could use them effectively.

[CincyDem]

37. Let me start from the bottom...

“Tools of corruption”…disagree. They are tools of the Supreme Court that was legally nominated by a series of Presidents and legally confirmed by a Senate process. That either the nominations or confirmations carry any corrupt intent, probably do but that’s what the process is suppose to wring out…and it didn’t. And we have a process to evict corrupt associate justices and it hasn’t been invoked…we can argue about why the the rule of law says 60 senators have to agree…and they haven’t. So…not tools of corruptions…power conferred on POTUS by the sitting final arbiters of constitutional law.

Shooting a political opponent on sight…fun to think about but realistically, it’s an extreme canard. Of course I’m not advocating killing anyone from either party for any reason. But there are tons (and tons) of things he can do that are a far cry from murder (we’ll get to those).

Bribes - yeah, he can do it but you’re right…why…it’s not who he is nor who I would want him to be.

So on to the what exactly…I have several proposals…most of which have to do with the President’s relationship with DoJ.

1) Release the full unredacted Mueller report this afternoon including 100% of all supporting materials (which I assume would include an unredacted Steele Report) on a national security premise. That it happens to impact the election is of no matter since the President is no allowed to interact with DoJ and his motives can not be called to account,

2) Release 100% of the unredacted evidence related to the documents and 1/6 cases.

Nothing illegal about that…DoJ practices about case confidentiality are just that…practices. Trump argued during his impeachment that if any of what he was charged with was illegal, he should be tried in the courts….then when he was headed for trial in the courts, he argued he should be tried in the court of public opinion via the election. OK…that makes us not only voters but jurors so we should know the evidence.

3). I’m not smart enough to know what else he can do. But we’re all sitting here screaming that Trump is going to dismantle the administrative state as we know it and end democracy…sounds like a lot of power. And it’s the exact same power Biden has today to yeah - I want to see the best constitutional and administrative lawyers in the country looking at this decision and instead of whinging about what trump will do tomorrow…lay out what Biden will do today.

F’ck this 2025 project…we need a 2024 project…stat. And yeah - practice matters.

[unblock]

39. My point is with respect to item 3), I think the new powers are mostly destructive or corrupt

I'm with you that we should look at the new powers and see if Biden can use them constructively. With appropriate skepticism as to whether they will be consistent if Biden is one of the parties before the court....

My concern is that we're trying, metaphorically, to build a house and the court gave us the power to lob grenades. Donnie can use that power to destroy the house. Biden can use the power as well, but I'm not sure how being able to lob grenades help build a house.

I'm with you on releasing unredacted reports, though ideally I wouldn't want to jeopardize any legal cases against Donnie. Then again if Donnie wins the election there is no case so if releasing too much hurts a case against Donnie we may have to chance it just to keep him out of office.

I agree we need to fight hard with whatever weapons we have. And the high road is at this point just not where the action is. The "analysis" of the debate shows this. We won the high road, Donnie crashed and burned on any thoughtful level. But no one seems to care about the leopard screaming about how he's going to eat all our faces when our guy had bad lighting weak mic and a cold.

If there's some new power we can use, great, let's use it. But I suspect there's nothing useful there.

[stopdiggin]

46. you are still not articulating what 'new powers' President Biden is now in possession of

WHAT exactly are you proposing that Biden do - as he throttles on up to the new 70mph? J

I claim there is no new legal territory freed up in this ruling. You claim that there is. Please give examples. SWAT the supreme court? Jail political opponents? Tamper with elections? Sell state secrets? Political appointments?

[CincyDem]

47. My claim that there are new powers afforded to the office of the President is based solely on...

...the fact that every liberal legal pundit, law scholars and 3 associate justices of the supreme court are running around with their hair on fire claiming that Trump is going to use these "new powers" to destroy democracy.

Seems to me that if these new powers can have such a sweeping negative impact in Trump's hands, there should be some good that can be done in Biden's hands.

Logically, we can't have it both ways...that Trump has all this power and Biden has nothing. Sure, a lot of it has to do with the kind of man who wields that sword and it may skew towards being destructive but to say there's nothing Biden can do feels like a failure of imagination (among people a lot smarter than me).

What I have exactly suggested is that Biden release unredacted Mueller and Steele reports along with the full evidentiary record for the 1/6 and documents cases. Trump wants to be tried in the court of public opinion - let's make sure it's an informed electorate.

[stopdiggin]

48. OK. but "seems to me" still doesn't articulate anything

I can sink my teeth into. So essentially we're just waving pom-poms around and chanting "Get tough" No .. tougher!" "My dog's bigger ..!"

[CincyDem]

49. haha - yeah. we'll I've been put in my place...

...let's just all sit around the campfire plotting ways to impeach SCOTUS and run the same playbook we've been running since Bush v. Gore. God forbid we consider anything different.

Have a great day.

[stopdiggin]

50. And I should come back with - not ENTIRELY missing out on what you have to say here.

I'm a little frustrated with the rather 'opaque' nature of the discussion
(as if you couldn't tell ! - - - )

But you're not really my target for the evening either - and I want to acknowledge that. "People of good will .. "
And so forth ...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[CincyDem]

52. -:-

And to you sir.

[larwdem]

60. I agree with you

Maybe this is just stupid panic that trump will have new powers. I don't know.

[Dan]

31. Politics is like a street fight - except it has unenforceable rules.

The SCOTUS has given both sides the right to use a blade. Because we want to fight fair (as we would have prior to this latest ruling) we choose not to use a blade but fully expect that the other guy would use the blade whether legal or not.

So, we have the moral high ground while bleeding out.

[Raven123]

2. Could you be more specific?

What would you have him do that he wouldn’t have done before the ruling?

[MOMFUDSKI]

3. He will not telegraph what his plans might be.

We wait

[atreides1]

4. I agree with you

He should use these tools that the SC just handed to him. I understand that he's a man of principles, but right now there is too much at stake...if he stands on his principles he'll condemn the rest of us to enslavement and death!!!

[Deek1935]

5. What "tools". What do you want him to do? Please be very specific.

[claudette]

15. Executive orders

To hold Dumpy accountable. I'm sure the WH lawyers can figure i out.

[brooklynite]

17. So you're saying Biden has the ability to throw Trump in jail without trial?

Force him to end his campaign? Order the media not to cover his speeches?

[claudette]

18. I did not say that

I said the lawyers could figure it out. Dumpy's lawyers know how to game the system so why not ours?

[brooklynite]

19. You were asked what the "it" is...

Lawyers don't think up "things we can do". They tell you how to do it legally.

I've been on calls with the Biden campaign. Their plan is.....to win the election. Not find some workaround to "stop Trump".

And I've stated before - the SC ruling doesn't "let Biden do anything as President". All it says is that if he tries something outside his authority he can'e be prosecuted.

[claudette]

22. I wasn't

“Asked” anything. You implied I was saying something I didn’t say. Whatever. If they don’t want to fight. Oh well.

[brooklynite]

28. "What "tools". What do you want him to do? Please be very specific."

See #5 which led to your "ask the lawyers" response.

[claudette]

29. I'm done

I said the lawyers could figure it out. Not me. If they don’t want to fight. Then so be it.

[larwdem]

57. You are right

he needs to fight! And we will too.

[larwdem]

55. What do

YOU want him to do? Your answer nothing! So what's up with that?

[brooklynite]

56. I'm not demanding that he do anything other than win the election...

The OP is calling for something more, but won't specify what.

[larwdem]

58. why

why do you we need to specify? It takes lawyers weeks to prepare for a case and they need to look into this new ruling and see if they can use it for are advantage. Biden and Dems must try...

[emulatorloo]

7. Biden doesn't want to be a king or a corrupt dictator. That is admirable, he is a man of character

who talks the talk and walks the walk.

[bigtree]

8. how in hell are they real if at the end there's this maga supreme court?

...all they need is a lower court conviction of Biden, and the maga Roberts court ultimately ignoring his appeal (or even accommodating the prosecutor with another contradictory ruling if it's reversed on appeal?)

None of that is real when this maga court is in place to render final judgment.

Been paying attention?

[emulatorloo]

10. +++++++++++++

[stopdiggin]

13. The Supreme Court ruling did NOT accord

Biden 'new tools' or powers.

This is a mistaken impression - that is either being pushed, or is running rampant on it's own.

[claudette]

24. So why

is the thinking it gave Dumpy powers to avoid accountability?

[stopdiggin]

43. I cannot account for the 'thinking'

of a hundred thousand (some with no knowledge at all) running around screaming at the top of their lungs. I'm afraid someone else will have to sort that out. I will just go ahead and repeat that the ruling (which I still think is border line abhorrent) did NOT do what a lot of those screamers are saying.

[larwdem]

59. yes why

is this just panic bullshit?

[claudette]

14. Personally

I'm done. We don't fight and we won't win. My America is gone if the orange felon can get away wih so many crimes. Now Bragg has approved delaying sentencing because of supreme's decision. I'm done.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

36. I understand your frustration.

But I hope you still vote in November.

[claudette]

40. Of course, I will vote

in November. But, I am worried we are not going to win. Everything else has gone Dumpy's way.

[ZonkerHarris]

25. So we should destroy democracy before Trump does? That's our choice?

[stopdiggin]

44. seems to be the prevaling sentiment. scary, huh? -(nt)-

[ZonkerHarris]

53. how did we get here again?

[kentuck]

26. What could he do?

At the moment, he is the President, not Trump.

Trump has nothing he can do unless he is elected President.

[Thrill]

32. You already know they won't be as rough as Republicans

They prove that over and over.

[claudette]

41. That seems to

be a handicap - and why gopers win.

[TexasDem69]

34. What "tools"?

President Biden has the exact same authority today that he had last Friday before the immunity decision.

[orangecrush]

35. I agree

FDR dealt with a biased supreme court in a way that made them stop playing games.

[former9thward]

38. No, he didn't.

His proposal to pack the courts was met with outrage by a Democratic congress. It was only a couple of retirements and FDR appointments that changed the direction of the court.

[stopdiggin]

45. thanks. an utterly failed political boondoggle

that still holds place today as some kind of hoary example of successful 'bully pulpit' populism.

[bluestarone]

42. Yea. Show this supreme court just what a fuck up they did!!

Get together and stretch everyway Joe can.

[Silent3]

51. That would just lead to charges that Biden is the out-of-control dictator we need to fear

The only way to do such a thing, and it's probably too cute by half to be worth trying, would be for Biden to commit a minor symbolic crime and insist that the Justice Department charge him for it, waiving the mere policy (not law) to not charge a sitting President.

Things like sending Trump and/or conservative Justices to Gitmo would hugely backfire.

[larwdem]

54. we need to fight

Last edited Wed Jul 3, 2024, 12:14 AM - Edit history (1)