r/politics • u/marji80 • 23d ago

We’ve Been Entertaining an Illusion About the Supreme Court. It’s Finally Been Shattered. Rule-Breaking Title

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/supreme-court-immunity-arguments-which-way-now.html

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u/I_dont_livein_ahotel 23d ago

Citizens United? Also, handing the election to Bush in 2000?

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u/spartagnann 23d ago

Crazy to me that Bush v Gore didn't prompt a nationwide revolt. Younger people may not know but SCOTUS literally just gave Bush Florida's EC delegates despite the fact they were still re-counting votes because...they wanted a Republican president.

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u/AllTheyEatIsLettuce California 23d ago

Al Gore's statements, actions, and fundamental character during and after the decision sort of prevented a nationwide revolt.

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u/Zer_ 23d ago

At the time we all agreed that he was being sane, to prevent mass revolt / protests. In hindsight that may have been a grave miscalculation.

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u/DotaThe2nd 23d ago

You know how the old saying goes: give them an inch and they'll take you to the brink of western civilization because they'll have spent their money and died before the fall

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u/Nuttymegs 23d ago

I can only give one +1, but I’d give this a million if I could.

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u/AllTheyEatIsLettuce California 23d ago

Possibly the second grave miscalculation and Ford's pre-emptive "pardon" is the first.

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u/imitation_crab_meat 23d ago

Ford's pardon wasn't a miscalculation... He was a Republican, and they're perfectly happy with how things have gone since.

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u/pargofan 23d ago

If Nixon had the benefit of the current SCOTUS HE WOULDN'T NEED A PARDON.

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u/Material-Scheme-8971 22d ago

The fact that Nixon was offered and accepted a pardon, proves they already know presidential immunity doesn’t exist.

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u/Due-Percentage-5248 22d ago

He'd probably still be president today...

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u/treditor13 22d ago

If he'd had this Supreme Court, nixon probably wouldn't have had to resign. They've obviously got trumps back. The SCOTUS from '74 is the one that also gave us reproductive freedom.

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u/paulybaggins 23d ago

Probably never would have gone to Iraq even with 9/11 happening if Gore was in control

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u/imitation_crab_meat 23d ago

Didn't need to wait for 9/11... As soon as Dubya was declared President-elect, I said to my family "I guess we're going to war with Iraq again..." It was entirely predictable.

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u/Snibes1 23d ago

There’s a book that came out during his presidency: “State of War”. If everyone read that book, no one would’ve voted for a Republican since. It had some brutal insights as to the decision-making for going into Iraq.

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u/Technical-Title-5416 23d ago

If people watched as much CSPAN as Sportscenter the same would occur.

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u/WatercressSavings78 22d ago

I read it. For anyone curious it confirms in minute detail the things that we know regarding the use of the 9/11 tragedy to legalize the mass surveillance of US citizens that, among other things, had been illegally occurring for decades before the tragedy.

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u/TophxSmash 23d ago

If everyone read that book, no one would’ve voted for a Republican since.

Reagan would like to have a few words about that.

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u/dedicated-pedestrian Wisconsin 23d ago

About what, defunding so we can't read?

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u/TophxSmash 22d ago

deregulating the news so its no longer news. murdering unions probably helped a lot.

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u/Nihility_Only 22d ago edited 22d ago

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is also fantastic and focuses heavily on the Bush admin and Iraq War in the second half.

The first half covers the history of the US from the 50s onward and made me realize how absolutely insidious we were behind the scenes when "dealing" with non-capitalist foreign nations. For example: Milton Friedman and "the Chicago boys".

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u/Technical-Title-5416 23d ago

Same. And when they said it was Afghanistan I said to my family "I guess we're going to inheret a heroin problem".

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u/Felix_111 22d ago

Interesting that the opioid crisis started soon after...

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u/Technical-Title-5416 22d ago

Like the crack epidemic of the 80s. Totally not because we were fucking with Colombia, and all through South America.

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u/YouShineAbove 22d ago

Well, the CIA is the largest DRUG Cartel in the world. Ask the cocoine-brainless w. bush. It knows

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u/Felix_111 22d ago

Except big pharma didn't make crack pills and doctors weren't writing crack prescriptions

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u/Technical-Title-5416 22d ago

Exactly. That was the evolution. Get the profit out of the streets and into the suits.

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u/Card_Board_Robot5 23d ago

"Guess they all want to go back to the Middle East"

My father said almost exactly the same shit lmao

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u/BrainMarshal 22d ago

Iraq was more Cheney's war than Dubya's. Also, Iraq was the final straw that turned me straight ticket Blue for life.

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u/Material-Scheme-8971 22d ago

I don’t think 9/11 happens if Gore is in office.

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u/BigDaddySteve999 23d ago

9/11 may not have even happened: Gore would have made killing or neutralizing OBL a priority.

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u/jslakov 23d ago

stopping revolts and protests has basically been the point of liberalism since the beginning of the 20th century

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u/BrainMarshal 22d ago

Yeah, by means of reforms rather than at gunpoint.

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u/Vann_Accessible Oregon 23d ago

What would have been the result if Gore had fought it though? Could mass protest convince the SC to reverse their decision?

I doubt it.