elbucho

"Average American president attempts 0.004 coups per year" factoid actually just a statistical error. Average American president attempts 0 coups per year. Traitors Donal, who dyes face orange & attempts over 0.25 coups each year, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

Here's a good write-up of it. It's pretty hilarious.

Shit like this is why red flag laws were invented.

I mean, every piece of copaganda is like: "look, see? We're just your friendly, neighborhood guys! We like playing basketball with black kids! Isn't that cool??"

I don't know that they specifically had a campaign that said: "we're not a gang", but that's kind of the subtext of all of the PR they do.

For a group that wants to distance itself from gangs, it sure doesn't help their case when they jump in new recruits.

Presidents say shit all the time, though. Just saying that there is a major problem is newsworthy, but it's all worth a hill of beans if it doesn't lead to lasting changes. I believe that he was right in that an amendment will be the securest way to enumerate the boundaries of executive authority, as it will be much harder for the Supreme Court to fuck that up, but there is an extremely high bar to pass to get an amendment through. If he decides to go the legislation route instead, any new laws that are passed by Congress are potentially subject to being overturned by the courts.

As for the optics of Republicans opposing supreme court reform or curtailing of executive authority... meh. We all watched nearly every single Republican in the House vote to not impeach Donald Trump on two separate occasions, for incredibly stupid reasons, and most of those people won re-election. Relying on the public to make good decisions when faced with bald-faced congressional corruption is a losing proposition.

I mean, no argument from me. The fact that the Supreme Court basically just ruled that the President can operate independently from the law, like a fucking king, would have every single one of those guys spinning in their graves fast enough to power a city. It's just the latest milestone in a decades-long quest by the Heritage Foundation to convert America's government into a Christian theocracy.

I only disagree with the term “murder” when it’s applied to Obama’s authorization of the strike that killed Anwar Al Awlaqi.

Yeah, that's fair enough. "Murder" is a charged term. I prefer it because it emphasizes that it is an unlawful killing of a person, and I take issue with the denial of due process. I think it's doubly applicable when it concerns the US killing of his 16-year-old son.

I would feel way more comfortable if the term “public danger” could only be applied to specific individuals rather than broad descriptions(like the one you referenced from Trump).

Yup. Shit like this is exactly why I'm so cagey any time new precedents are set, because things that could be justified in certain hands can be tyranny in others. I feel like a deep familiarity with the law and US history naturally leads to a certain paranoia, and for good reason.

Sorry, I posted something else, but upon reviewing it, I felt that I had to make some major revisions, so I just opted to delete the post and make a new one instead.

"Due process" isn't really defined in the constitution, but it is mentioned in both the 5th and 14th amendments. Here's the text of the fifth:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Because it's not explicitly defined, the Supreme Court has had to interpret what "due process" actually means. Here's a breakdown of how it interprets procedural due process (process for civil and criminal cases):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_due_process

Of note is this bit:

At minimum, a person is due only notice, an opportunity to be heard, and a decision by a neutral decisionmaker.

This is a very low bar, especially when facing capital punishment. But in the case of Al-Alwaqi, even this low bar was denied to him.

I really like your metaphor about the bank robbers - it's a very good comparison on the basis of similarity of imminent public danger. The thing is, though, police actually have certain rules about when they can use deadly force, and though they very, very often get away with it even in situations where no deadly force is warranted, they are still occasionally indicted for it. Like Derek Chauvin, for example. One of the guiding lines for when use of deadly force is allowed is when there is an imminent danger either to the officer or to the public. But even this is subjected to review. Granted, it's not great review. But there's still something. There is no process for reviewing governmental use of deadly force on US citizens with drone strikes. In fact, since most military operations of this type are classified, we actually have no idea how many US citizens have been killed in this way.

The court’s job is explicitly to interpret the laws made by congress.

No, not quite. The supreme court's job is to interpret the constitution, not laws made by congress. Any law made by congress can be subject to review by the courts if a case involving that law is brought before them. As an example, the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2021) that a portion of section 304(a) of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was unconstitutional, specifically the part that established a $250,000 limit on the amount of post-election campaign contributions that can be used to repay a candidate for personal campaign loans made pre-election.

If Congress makes a law establishing certain limits on presidential authority, and that law gets challenged in court, future supreme court sessions will have to determine if it is constitutional. One of the many ways they do that is to look at past precedent from previous supreme courts. They're not bound by past precedent, but they make use of it quite often.

I think you misunderstand me: I'm not questioning his involvement in al-Qaeda. But the fact remains that he was a US Citizen. Being a citizen typically entitles people to certain perks, like due process in a court of law. This was denied to him, which is why the ACLU took up the case. The state has the power to execute someone, but up until this precedent was set, it was only able to legally do so after they had been convicted in a court of law. Intelligence agencies do not fall under that umbrella.

The country he was seeking refuge in had even ordered him to be captured dead or alive.

This is entirely irrelevant to US law. If, say, I was in Bolivia, and the Bolivian government had an active dead or alive warrant on some US expat, it would still be a capital crime for me to kill that man on Bolivia's behalf.