Whenever something happens, I'm always waiting for Glen Greenwald's report on the issue. You can count on it to be clear, to be well broken down for laypersons like myself, and to include the evidence for all of his assertions. Glen Greenwald's conscientious reporting style is what all reporters should be doing. It's frightening that these journalistic principles are now so rare they're practically non-existent.
This is so stupid; the Supreme court isn't supposed to formalize "customs", but interpret existing law (which doesn't exist). This isn't about Trump... 🤦♂️ There is no mechanism determining what is Presidential act or not...👈 Freedoms arises from infighting between elite interests... Tilting the power balance is dangerous. Another flippant take from Glenn, like his Citizens United; "Well we already have Corruption"🤦♂️
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” -John Adams
And that is exactly what you’ve ended up with. Perhaps you’re not the “greatest democracy in the world” after all. Britain, with a different system, also has lost its luster, as you might expect in a country with a vicious class system, enshrined in a House of Lords. All the “great democracies” are coming apart at the seams as they are revealed as machines for facilitating kleptocracy.
Its gotten so bad i have started checking like 25 different sources for the truth on a story like this. Its frustrating that they are just straight up lying to us so much
@@Darthdoodoohonestly this is good practice even if they didn’t lie so much, getting as many perspectives as possible is always for the best. But yeah realistically nobody has time to read 50 articles or watch 50 different videos any time something happens so it’s hard haha
@@Jm-wt1fs The really sad part is that even educated and intelligent people still prefer to believe narratives that support their ideological beliefs vs. accepting facts that disprove those beliefs. I just want a good faith attempt to be given the truth and not some politically motivated opinion. I may not always like the truth but being well informed is what's important.
@@1CuriousMuse I always assume everything online has some sort of hidden agenda, bc everyone I talk to in real life is generally pretty reasonable, if just misinformed on some things. Just my opinion. I don’t know many true ideologues in real life personally
@@StinkCabbageyep, totally. He definitely isn’t just calling balls and strikes. He definitely hasn’t roundly criticized both parties and every administration since he started reporting
Too bad the dissent in this case didn't show the integrity of at least pretending to read the majority opinion. "Droning a political rival" on American soil is illegal and NOT a delegated power under the President's Article 2 responsibilities.
As Glenn is carefully pointing out, if anything the majority is codifying a rule that specifically anticipates the potential criminal prosecution of presidents. So these justices did the exact opposite of that which they're being accused as previously no president had faced any prosecution for anything and prior to Nixon only one president had even been impeached.
@@Blackjack701AD Biden doesn't think ahead, he goes all in with he's always thought. Even if his plan will obviously backfire. Afghanistan, Ukraine, Covid, Prosecuting Trump, all the same.
Glenn, you've thoroughly addressed the assassination of US citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki, yet make no mention of his son, 16yr old Abdul Rahman, of Colorado, drone assassinated by Barak Obama, in Yemen, while searching for his errant father. This was the point at which many of us stopped being apologists for Obama, myself included. A 16yr old American kid was assassinated with no due process by an American president. I remain estranged from my own mother, to this day, over that argument, which ensued upon hearing that news on DemocracyNOW!, on the way to my kid's soccer game. My sons were teenagers, themselves, at the time, and I remember that moment of horror similarly to the way people remember the JFK assassination. If I recall correctly, you also covered it at the time? Do you believe Eric Holder's statement re. the review process, ie. the Tuesday morning kill list, was meant to cover all such extrajudicial murders and indemnify any POTUS?
“If I recall correctly, you also covered it at the time?” Glenn did-see “The killing of Awlaki's 16-year-old son” in _Salon,_ 20 October 2011. I was hoping, also, for a mention of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son. (And, of course, there was former White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who, when asked about the killing, said a teen in that situation “should have a far more responsible father…”) Thanks for noting it in the comments.
@@sflasaint811 Yes. Everyone needs freedom of conscience. It's important to a thriving world. And we cannot hold others in contempt for having a polar opposite view. We need to have respectful conversations or learn to hold our tongues. It's that simple. People evolve in their own ways, in their own time. That's true of us all. Coercion is not the way forward.
You are shedding a tear over a 16 year old terrorist (or at least confidant) and son of a Al Qaeda terrorist? You think just because he wasnt 18 he isnt dangerous? The attack went against Ibrahim al-Banna, a known Al Qaeda terrorist. If you dont want to be hit by drones maybe stop talking to Al Quaeda terrorists...
It's not being distorted You're just too stupid to understand what happened. The ruling destroyed the Constitution utterly. The president can now do whatever they want, during an official act, and then nobody can prosecute or question it.
A president can literally murder someone now, as long as it's during an "official act," and the proof cannot even be reviewed by a court in America. This is absolute immunity.
@@a.randomjack6661 God risked his only begotten Son, Jesus, for us. Like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he is always waiting to welcome us home with celebration and open arms.
Here's an idea: How about presidents NOT committing crimes? Come to think of it, when was the last president in your lifetime, from an objective viewpoint, not been implicated in breaking the law or outright ordering crimes of war?
I like how fast he said at the end, "this is the most.corrupt thing in Washington that I have wrote about." But didn't add that now this corruption is formalized by law. Nice touch Greenwald!
I haven't watched the video yet, but I hope Glen points out how Bush and Obama are free men in america. To me, this ruling is a joke as the precedence for letting war criminals roam free is an american political passtime
I think, in a very superficial way, it's a good sign that the executive branch disagrees with the judicial branch, it would be terrifying if all 3 branches agreed with each other.
They have always done it, even during the Civil War and prior to, after the Dread Scott law was issued. This should be apart of free speech. The Supreme Court interpret laws, so if they stick to Constitutional principles, the executive can scream all it wants to, the law is above political propaganda and opinions.
In a way that's kind of how our 3 branch system was designed. The executive was supposed to be the manifest will of over half the voting country within the last 4 years, each member of the legislative was supposed to be the manifest will of their respective areas, but the judicial was meant to be the will of the constitution. It was meant to be something of a brake and higher bar then passing changes in political opinion... and as such would often but heads. Like shit you think that's bad a president a long time ago effectively told the supreme court yeah try enforcing that decision. Shit FDR threatened to neuter the voting power of the sitting justices but damn did he expect people to respect the rulings they made after they all started voting his way against the constitution That said SCOTUS sadly still often goes with what is popular instead of what is right. The worst decisions they've made were made to applause.
@@marccreation1052 I agree that the current nominee is a weenie but the principles of libertarianism are what I vote for and I refuse to vote for the careerist clowns in either of these fake professional parties. Better to vote for the principles of liberty than to vote for more chains and corruption.
I miss the old Glenn Greenwald. This one sounds more upset that democrats are late to agree with him than that the Supreme Court made a ruling enshrining the theory he's been adamantly against for decades.
@@AJohnSmith ... ironically and laughably... in the case of this concerted cabal of assassins in black robes... "invested ourselves" works even better here... as in sold themselves.
The problem is immunity for official acts. If you have an authoritarian who wants to use official acts to criminalize the opposition, then this is no longer an “ethos” but the law.
Glenn is always brilliant and illuminating, but this analysis in particular is one of the most essential for all Americans to hear -- not only for the understanding it brings, but also because it exposes the sheer propaganda of the MSM, and their ulterior motives. On a related note, the fact that presidents don't need to fear the consequences of their actions seems to me to be at the heart of some of the worst atrocities committed by our successive leaders through the decades.
There's no context. This ruling puts the president above the law. The president can commit whatever crime they want and get away with it. You only hear what you want to hear.
@@jasonbarnett7747 Did you actually listen to the entire video? They have ALWAYS been positioned as above the law as president. And Glenn names the sins of past presidents who were never tried for their crimes.
Glenn - Presidents used to have immunity from civil suits, not criminal charges, and considering that Congress can't "fix" this, you don't think a president who's free to do as they please is not a problem?
Thank You, Glenn Greenwald, for this comprehensive and brilliant analysis of how " Supreme Court's Immunity Ruling is Being Radically Distorted" dated by You Tube circa July 1, 2024.
"Look at this awful history of presidential immunity! Its terrible! I mean this ruling isn't a big deal though; it only enshrined it in law. No biggie. Enjoy some of my hits from two decades ago:...."
For those who don’t know, Glenn both taught constitutional law as a practicing attorney and faught in court for people’s rights. All prior to becoming a journalist.
One thing Glenn gets wrong here is when he says that Ford's pardon of Nixon was widely supported at the time. Glenn was very young in 1974, and while I'm just a few years older, that may be enough of a difference for me to remember that the pardon was generally not popular at all, and caused Ford's approval rating to plunge barely a month into office. Come to think of it, I think Glenn also exaggerates the level of support for Bush Sr.'s Iran-Contra pardons in 1992; it was not universal, there was quite a lot of criticism. Read independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's memoir, 'Firewall.'
The problem is the imperial presidency. I wrote about the lack of due process during the Obama administration. Nixon, it turns out, was right: A paraphrase... If the president does it, then it’s legal.
What is being missed by a lot of the analysis is the distinction between the President (or, for that matter, any executive official) being liable as a private person vs the Government itself being liable for its own conduct. The private liability of executive officials, as elected representatives or appointed agents of the public, would allow buck passing from the public to their representatives for carrying out the public's will. They are literally not supposed to be acting as private individuals in that capacity in their office. I think for that reason I would still disagree with Glenn over privately prosecuting even Obama or Bush for their crimes in office. I don't care about whether or not they receive retributive justice as private individuals, I care about the office itself being forbidden from taking certain actions regardless of the occupant, particularly when those officials can still be removed from their office via the impeachment process. I would rather Bush have been impeached from the presidency, and a set of legal or constitutional precedents set which prevent the reoccurrence of an Abu Ghraib or a Guantonimo from happening again, than that Bush be prosecuted and thrown in jail years later while a sitting President is still able to recommit the same crimes while banking on using their political party to either retain power and thus avoid prosecution, or for a future partisan to pardon them after the fact for their crimes. Much like the Bill of a Rights, we need prohibitions on the actions the state can take against anyone, not a system of personal civil or criminal responsibility for crimes committed, fundamentally, by the government itself.
@@GR-zh4ol There's a lot of truth to that. I think that a lot of the misplaced reaction to this ruling is founded on, as you noted, the fact that this is just the Supreme Court doing its job. This immunity has been assumed to exist, and they're going to fill the role of defining where it does or does not, absent a constitutional amendment which clarifies the issue and changes the framework through which the court interprets the laws. That being said, one of the benefits of having a constitutional system of government as we do is that changing that foundational framework can be done without violence, and fully legally, in the same way the transfer of power can be done. I would argue that the Constitution itself is a revolutionary document already, and that the American Revolution is not an event that happened in the late 1700s, but one which is still unfolding. You might not need any more of a revolution to achieve a just society than the one you already have. Instead of breaking with it, you merely aim to realize it to its fullest extent. After all, our founders changed Locke's "Property" to the Declaration's "The Pursuit of Happiness" for a reason. Perhaps they knew what we might one day face?
“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” - David Frum (Speechwriter for George W. Bush)
Where does impeachment come into this, and after Impeached in both House and Senate, could a President then face criminal charges? High Crimes and Misdemeanors, bribery and Treason?
thank you for clarifying by your Constitutional knowledge the complex issue here of Presidential immunity, and how it has always been a part of of our history - and how the Supremes gave a very nuanced decision by the very first case to ever bring this issue up in the courts.
One of the most informative and well organized hours of news that could ever be released given the scope of our country over the past 20 years. Glenn, you are a hero. I wish more boomers knew your name.
Of course it is. It was being distorted when the idea was brought up to the point the Justices literally addressed it in the opinions. Even reminding people that SCOTUS already opined on this decision but declined to make it precedent because they were only being asked about civil immunity and that anything otherwise would make a complete shambles separation of powers Often by people who quietly omit the fact they have a ton of legal immunity. Like look up what Congress can do blatantly as long as it could even slightly be construed as part of the job... example Warren just a couple years ago knowingly defaming the covington kids and siccing supporters on them... guilty on the facts but completely immune from suit or prosecution because speaking on public matters was part of her job even if it was lying about them. Or Obama droning citizens who didn't do anything wrong... sounds a little like presidents could already assassinate you
