I prefer using higher precision when responding like this. I will often say something like: “137.825%”. Mostly, I do this because it makes the other person feel awkward, and I do it because I constantly feel awkward, and so I just want other people to feel a tiny portion of what it’s like being me.

I mean, everything does happen for a reason. It’s just that most of the time, the reason is “because so-and-so is an asshole”. It makes it essentially a useless platitude, but not an untrue one. I definitely take issue with the implication of it, that there’s some supreme, all-knowing authority in the universe who has this complicated, labyrinthine plan for everyone that involves massive amounts of suffering. That whole “mysterious plan of God” thing is a way for Christians to take credit for all of the good stuff that happens, while downplaying all of the bad stuff that happens as just “part of God’s plan!” It’s insidious.

Useless figurehead doesn’t shave for a couple of days. News at 11.

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.

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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.

He was alleged to be the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. But, of course, he was a US citizen, and the drone strike happened in Yemen, a country we were not at war with. So it raised a significant number of ethical and procedural questions. Also, we killed his 16-year-old son (who was also a US citizen) with a drone strike several days later, also in Yemen.

but I don’t think your example is comparable.

Well, that’s the thing. Precedent is a tricky mistress. Sure, Obama had what he considered very good reasons for crossing that line, but it set a precedent that any subsequent president could follow. It’s like how George Washington set the precedent for presidential pardons by pardoning two men who were sentenced to be executed for protesting a tax on whiskey, and then a couple hundred years later, Trump was just straight up selling pardons to people for two million bucks a pop.

The point is, what seems reasonable when justified by a good president could easily be turned into something horrible by a bad president. The precedent set by Obama is probably not going to be as narrow as: “the US president is free to order the killing by drone strike of any US citizen who US intelligence agencies believe is a high ranking member in a terrorist organization (or a member of their family), as long as they are currently located in a middle eastern country”, just like the precedent set by Washington wasn’t: “The US president is free to pardon anybody who is accused of protesting a tax on whiskey”.

I’m not looking to garner sympathy for Al Awlaqi. But it is a really fucking bad precedent to allow the president to kill people with no oversight, and if you’re not sure why that’s the case, maybe think on it a bit.

I mean, thanks to Obama, the president has the authority to kill any US citizen they deem as a threat. The ACLU brought a case against the government about that, but that case was dismissed on procedural grounds, so it’s still constitutionally untested. But regardless of it being tested, there is precedent for it, thanks to Obama’s murder of Anwar Al-Awlaqi. And since the precedent says that the murder by the executive branch of any US citizen it deems a threat is kosher, well that would fall pretty nicely under the heading of “official acts of office” that this latest supreme court case showed would be absolutely immune from prosecution.

So I guess the question is: does Biden feel like murdering a bunch of citizens?

That’s a bit trickier, though, because SCOTUS already ruled on this, which means that their fucked ruling is now precedent. So any future challenges to a law passed by congress would be interpreted with that precedent in mind. If the composition of the supreme court changes, they could reverse their earlier rulings, but it’s much less certain of an outcome than if there was an amendment to the constitution guiding future decisions.

Technically, it’s an either / or process. It either needs 2/3rds of both houses, or 2/3rds of state legislatures have to call for a constitutional convention. You are right, however, in that after either hurdle is passed, it still needs to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures in the union. That’s where the equal rights amendment is now. It passed both houses, but has not yet met the 3/4 state legislature hurdle, so it’s still in the pipeline 81 years after its proposal. Yay government!

I’m a bit skeptical on the first bullet point: while I’m all for an amendment to the US constitution that spells out in detail the limits on presidential authority, it’s still an amendment that has to get passed. That means that it needs a 2/3rds majority in both the House and the Senate, or it needs to be supported by 2/3rds of the state legislatures. I don’t think there’s any way in hell that Biden’s going to be able to get that through while the prospect of Trump regaining the presidency is on the horizon. At the moment, 47% of the US Senate is Democrat, with 4% caucusing with the Democrats most of the time, 49% of the US House is Democrat, and 46% of State Governors are Democrat. While it’s not 100% certain that all Republicans would vote along party lines, I’m reasonably certain that all Republicans would vote along party lines, which means a constitutional amendment is dead in the water.

Now, if Harris wins the presidency, there’s a good chance that the Republicans would be willing to vote for an amendment to curtail presidential authority. But right now? Nuh uh. Not gonna happen. As for the other two bullet points, they’re certainly more possible right now than a constitutional amendment, but still unlikely. Dems don’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and I’m certain that the Republicans would filibuster the shit out of that. Even if that wasn’t the case, there’s no way it’d pass the House. Best case scenario, Harris wins, with a large majority in both houses, and is able to push some legislation along these lines through.

Edit: changed language from “ratified by 2/3rds of the states” to “supported by 2/3rds of the state legislatures”.

Yup. I’m old enough to remember when the selling point of cable TV was that it was ad-free. Then, of course, they started adding ads. And then they sold us premium channels that didn’t have ads. Now those have ads, too. You just can’t get away from them.

I find it fascinating how media companies evolved their usage of ads over time. Used to be that the purpose of showing someone an ad was to get them to buy your product. Now, though, the companies who make the ads are paying to have them put on media networks who use the ads to annoy you into paying for a premium membership so you don’t have to see them. It’s double dipping.

Not sure how I would feel if I made an ad, and YouTube was saying to their users: “Yeah, you like that fucking ad? Super annoying, isn’t it? If you don’t pay me more money, I’m going to cram that annoying bullshit down your throat every time you want to watch a video. I’m going to put ads at the beginning of videos. I’m going to sprinkle them throughout the middle. Hell, I’m even going to make you watch ads after the video ends! You like that, you little bitch??”