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jmyeet 18 hours ago

There are lists of the worst decisions of the Supreme Court in history (eg [1]). Dred Scott [2] often tops such lists. I believe that Trump v. United States [3] will go on such lists in the near future. Why? Because it opened the floodgates on corruption on a scale we previously haven't seen. The president has absolute immunity. The president's communications with the Attorney-General can't even be examined, basically. And there was absolutely no constitutional basis for it. The Court established a King.

So the president has absolute immunity from any consequences. The president can pardon anyone in their orbit. Pardons are now being openly sold for personal profit [4].

All of this was completely foreseeable from giving someone absolute immunity.

Prediction markets make this much worse because they're even more unregulated. We certainly had corruption even in Trump's first term (eg Jared Kushner's Saudi "investment" [5]). This is the new normal.

[1]: https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/supreme-court/13-worst-su...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States

[4]: https://www.cato.org/blog/embarrassment-riches

[5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68296877

dylan604 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So the president has absolute immunity from any consequences.

That's not true. Congress still has the power to impeach with the a conviction in the Senate removing the sitting president. The problem is that both chambers of Congress are lead by sycophants of the president. All SCOTUS did was put an asterisk to the notion that "no man above the law". It's a big fat asterisk to be sure, but they gave themselves a little wiggle room.

pjc50 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Republicans spent about 40 years stacking the court with partisans in order to overturn Roe v Wade, and got the corruption as a bonus.