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DeusExMachinima posted:There's no law defining the proper way to advise or consent, it's blatantly left vague. Your strong argument is just like your opinion man. The Volokh Conspiracy basically speaks my thoughts on it better than I ever could, that it's all 100% legally legitimate despite the fact that you (and I) think it's unwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...m=.c627a11f8e0f ain't no law says a dog can't be president, yup
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:04 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:23 |
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Rygar201 posted:ain't no law says a dog can't be president, yup
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:06 |
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twodot posted:You'd need to find a 35 year old dog, which might be difficult. Ain't no law says it ain't dog years, ayup
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:07 |
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If you got cryogenically frozen at 15 years old and woke up 20 years later, would you be eligible to run for POTUS?
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:11 |
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U-DO Burger posted:If you got cryogenically frozen at 15 years old and woke up 20 years later, would you be eligible to run for POTUS? Dead people aren't usually allowed to run for President, no.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:16 |
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Prism posted:Dead people aren't usually allowed to run for President, no. There's got to be a Dick Cheney joke in there somewhere.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:18 |
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DeusExMachinima posted:Yeah yeah I know that, I'm asking him. The Senate obviously didn't consent. Their reason for not consenting was 100% transparent and simultaneously 100% legal because there are no forbidden reasons for denying consent. There isn't much in the Constitution that requires them to do anything, but if they just decided they weren't going to show up to work anymore then we wouldn't have a government. The result would be the dissolution of the national government and, if we're lucky, a Constitutional convention to figure out what the gently caress we're supposed to do when half the country is electing representatives who gladly put the convenience of their party above the essential health of the nation they're supposed to serve. poo poo, next time we have a divided government it's probably going to come to that anyway, or civil war.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:52 |
DeusExMachinima posted:There's no law defining the proper way to advise or consent, it's blatantly left vague. Your strong argument is just like your opinion man. The Volokh Conspiracy basically speaks my thoughts on it better than I ever could, that it's all 100% legally legitimate despite the fact that you (and I) think it's unwise. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...m=.c627a11f8e0f Literally all law is just some dudes opinion man. Either words have meaning or the law is just a sleeping giant we poke with sticks and whoever happens to be standing in front of the giant loses. In this instance they have a duty to advise. They could arguably satisfy this duty with a minimal gesture, sure -- I won't argue they have to hold a hearing. But they *should* do something beyond simply pretending the nomination didn't happen. In the end sure from a pure power argument they can't be forced to and that's all that matters. But that reduces Constitutional duties to only those duties which can be enforced by other branches, and I can't accept that as valid. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 05:59 |
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Maybe it's better to be clear what is meant by "required to do". There are things that elected officials are "required to do", not because every last thing is spelled out five different ways like a loving child custody agreement from a bitter divorce, but because doing them legitimizes the process of governance, which at the end of the day is just a bunch of random assholes telling other people what to do. If you start shirking those duties or interpreting them in novel new ways that conveniently deny power to half the country and give it to yourself instead, then a lot of people start asking why the gently caress we're bothering to have a foundational document where we agree how we're going to do governance in the first place. That's pretty dangerous. If we can't elect a President and have any reasonable expectation that he will be able to, for example, nominate and appoint judges and justices as provided by law, then why bother having a President, or for that matter law, in the first place? Why don't we just bathe in the blood of our enemies instead, until someone sneaks up behind us and blows our brains out?
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:07 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Literally all law is just some dudes opinion man. Either words have meaning or the law is just a sleeping giant we poke with sticks and whoever happens to be standing in front of the giant loses. In practice, the people who can afford the longest sticks seem to have the best odds.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:09 |
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Doc Hawkins posted:In practice, the people who can afford the longest sticks seem to have the best odds. To respond semi-topically: Justice Rehnquist posted:To the argument that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:11 |
Kilroy posted:Maybe it's better to be clear what is meant by "required to do". There are things that elected officials are "required to do", not because every last thing is spelled out five different ways like a loving child custody agreement from a bitter divorce, but because doing them legitimizes the process of governance, which at the end of the day is just a bunch of random assholes telling other people what to do. If you start shirking those duties or interpreting them in novel new ways that conveniently deny power to half the country and give it to yourself instead, then a lot of people start asking why the gently caress we're bothering to have a foundational document where we agree how we're going to do governance in the first place. Yup, exactly. I'll admit that it's very likely the Founders never remotely comprehended that a black dude would be president and that many of them would probably have fully agreed with the "gently caress it, let's pretend the black dude isn't President" congressional strategy in such a scenario. But, regardless, if we're going to have a system of republican government -- and not just relapse into a rule by might, a la the Wilmington Massacre -- every separate branch of government can't try to be Andrew Jackson all at once. We're already seeing the results of this in Schumer's announcement today that he can't imagine a Trump nominee Democrats would vote for. We're either going to see the filibuster abolished for SC nominees or we're going to see the size of the court steadily decline as justices die off because our government no longer functions well enough to appoint anybody. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:14 |
Doc Hawkins posted:In practice, the people who can afford the longest sticks seem to have the best odds. Well, yes, but that doesn't mean those of us with the short sticks have to be happy about the situation or accept that it's fair or just.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:15 |
They were pretty clear that they (claim they) don't think an (almost) outgoing president should be picking a justice (a year away from being) on his way out the door. Everybody knows it's bullshit and they just don't want Scalia's seat shifting left but that's the feedback the president got: "Don't bother, we don't want anybody from you just now." It's a trick they had in their bag to get what they wanted, and it worked. I'm kinda curious if they would've done the same over RBG's seat. Replacing her with Garland would be a net gain for them, after all.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:17 |
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twodot posted:I still think the argument that "orders to detain 40 people without charge indefinitely are definitely legal orders soldiers will follow, but spending money to release those people from detention is super illegal, and soldiers definitely won't do that" is REALLY weird, but I suspect we won't reach agreement on that. It is pretty funny that you're really mad in the Supreme Court thread about Guantanamo not getting closed, but are apparently unfamiliar with the two most famous Supreme Court decisions about its legality.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:25 |
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They advised the president they wouldn't accept any nominees.quote:Literally all law is just some dudes opinion man
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:35 |
EwokEntourage posted:They advised the president they wouldn't accept any nominees. Technically true! (which is the best kind of true) Substantive point being, either we accept that law is just the personal opinions of those in power, or we accept the aspirational model of law as a set of binding norms -- should vs is, is vs. should. And if we're looking at this from "should," as was said above -- everyone knows exactly what the Republicans were doing in denying Garlands' nomination, and it's functionally equivalent to Andrew Jackson's "Now let him enforce it" -- one branch of government, with a clear legal duty, ignoring that duty because they had the power to do so and not for any legitimate reason. I mean, under the "well, can they get away with it? Then it's legal" argument, Andrew Jackson was right and the Trail of Tears was legal. (edit: and yes I'm aware I'm relying on an apocryphal quote etc., but there aren't that many examples in American history of one branch of government outright ignoring a constitutional duty, so grant me the metaphor if not the actuality). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 06:37 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean, under the "well, can they get away with it? Then it's legal" argument, Andrew Jackson was right and the Trail of Tears was legal. The internment of Japanese-Americans and the imprisonment of pacifist figures for unacceptable speech in WWI are probably better examples The constitution means whatever congress and the supreme court agrees it means, nothing more or less In the aspirational sense of 'should' our justice system should probably be completely different from the ground up (something where private wealth or the personal interest of some nonprofit aren't critically necessary to access it, f.ex) e: you might say 'but those cases were later ruled to be unconstitutional', and yes, but they were the law of the land and enforced and people died as a result and no supreme court justice or wilson administration official ever suffered in the slightest for enforcing the law If RBG, Breyer and Kennedy all die and get replaced by clones of Alito and then affirm that the 2018 congress' law criminalizing anti-war protests against trump's war in mexico that will still be the law and constitional, text and meaning be damned atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Jan 6, 2017 |
# ? Jan 6, 2017 09:41 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Literally all law is just some dudes opinion man. Waiter please take this back. It's far too spicy.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 11:40 |
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There has to be a godwin's law for this type of thing and bringing out dred scott case as an example that law really is just the enforced opinions of whoever has power. He's not wrong.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 13:08 |
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Yeah, it's called Constitutional Law.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 13:14 |
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Mavric posted:Yeah, it's called Constitutional Law. which serves as a case in point
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 13:14 |
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Is there a word for stating something so obviously true that it doesn't need to be stated at all and simultaneously so obviously meaningless that it never should've been stated in the first place? If you had the biggest gun then your opinion would matter, great point there, really deep.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 13:38 |
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:everyone that is still there is unambiguously a Real Bad Dude hope this is of some help! Good to know, should be a slam-dunk case in court then, that case will be airtight now that we've had so much time to sort out all that evidence they're guilty.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 14:45 |
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Not all the evidence they have on those folks would be admissible in a civilian court, but fortunately, you don't have to send enemy combatants to courts when you're in an armed conflict. For much the same reason why you don't have to go to court before soldiers have to shoot bullets at the enemy.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 14:52 |
The Iron Rose posted:Not all the evidence they have on those folks would be admissible in a civilian court, but fortunately, you don't have to send enemy combatants to courts when you're in an armed conflict. For much the same reason why you don't have to go to court before soldiers have to shoot bullets at the enemy. A lot of it wouldn't be admissible in a military court either as it was obtained via torture. That's like the big problem.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 15:20 |
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Oh how comforting. And now thanks to people like you, it will be Donald Trump & friends determining whether the secret evidence we're not allowed to see is enough to imprison people forever. Well not forever, but again thanks to people like you the AUMF has been expanded to apply to any group anywhere in the world regardless of whether they're affiliated with the 9/11 attackers or even existed in 2001 as long as the president calls them terrorism, so we'll only be imprisoning people until the US signs a peace treaty with every terrorist that might ever one day exist. But maybe we can see the evidence with a FOIA request 100 years after everyone involved is dead and if it turns out to be as flimsy as aluminum tubes then we can say sorry (but today's prisoners held without charge on secret evidence are really real threats honest).
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 15:21 |
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DeusExMachinima posted:Is there a word for stating something so obviously true that it doesn't need to be stated at all and simultaneously so obviously meaningless that it never should've been stated in the first place? If you had the biggest gun then your opinion would matter, great point there, really deep. its not really meaningless when you have people in this very thread's last two pages acting like law is in any real way objective rather than based on the biased viewpoints of those in power. it's an obvious fact when we get opposing, polarized opinions from upper echelons of legal bodies in the country. so when people walk in and say "well they followed the rule of law " that's the real meaningless statement.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 15:34 |
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Wheat I grow for personal consumption in my own backyard is not interstate commerce, okay? End of discussion.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 16:26 |
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FuriousxGeorge posted:Wheat I grow for personal consumption in my own backyard is not interstate commerce, okay? End of discussion. Did you say wheat or weed this is important
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 16:30 |
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joeburz posted:its not really meaningless when you have people in this very thread's last two pages acting like law is in any real way objective rather than based on the biased viewpoints of those in power. it's an obvious fact when we get opposing, polarized opinions from upper echelons of legal bodies in the country. so when people walk in and say "well they followed the rule of law " that's the real meaningless statement. Except the poster who started this derail (along with others) claimed that the soon-to-be Republican SCOTUS nominee was "literally illegitimate" and/or that a legal argument could be made blah blah blah. Switching gears to "well I'm just saying that *I* think" after coming out with a whopper like that is pretty fuckin weak. FuriousxGeorge posted:Wheat I grow for personal consumption in my own backyard is not interstate commerce, okay? End of discussion. I hate to break it to you but not only are we past that point but since 2012 Uncle Sam can fine you for not buying wheat seeds and fertilizer. DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jan 6, 2017 |
# ? Jan 6, 2017 17:41 |
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Dead Reckoning posted:The military can detain enemy combatants more or less indefinitely until the conclusion of hostilities, and I don't think Al Queda is going to surrender any time soon. This isn't something George W. Bush made up either, it's explicitly permitted by the Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court held in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the government can detain foreign national enemy combatants indefinitely in accordance with the laws of war. Although the Court held in Rasul v. Bush that detainees have a right to challenge their designation as enemy combatants, this isn't the same thing as a trial, and the military already meets this burden through their Combatant Status Review process. (The detainees have been able appeal the military's decision to the federal courts since Boumediene v. Bush.) The whole scheme is approved by Congress and has survived multiple legal challenges, so that's about as lawful as an order can get. If you wanted to address my actual argument you need to engage with the legal understanding of the soldiers who be issued these orders, not mine anyways.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 17:46 |
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twodot posted:Why bother having a Supreme Court thread if I can't disagree with them? If I were to argue the government should release people arrested for marijuana possession would you start quoting Raich v Gonzales at me? Also please answer my question about who would even have standing to contest the relevant laws are Constitutional and the President has some obligation to follow them, and what remedy they would seek. Yeah but the argument you're making is on par with "Hold on, you promised we would have a meeting tomorrow no matter what but technically a meteor could annihilate the planet between now and then so really you lied to me." When people say Obama can't do something, they mean that within the constraints imposed on him by the international system and the circumstances of domestic politics, there is no feasible way he could or would ever do it. Saying "Well technically Obama could pardon every single person in the United States on his last day of office" or "well technically Obama could singlehandedly murder every Republican politician, thus ensuring permanent Democratic rule" is irrelevant because there is literally no chance of it ever happening so why should people have to qualify perfectly reasonable arguments with lengthy explanations that, while yes Obama could technically close Guantanamo by personally shoving each remaining detainee out of Air Force One over the Atlantic Ocean, that's not an actual thing that would ever happen. It's insanely pedantic.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 17:57 |
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VitalSigns posted:Oh how comforting. And now thanks to people like you, it will be Donald Trump & friends determining whether the secret evidence we're not allowed to see is enough to imprison people forever. Hey it's not like his pick for AG sees civil/voting rights groups as criminal and terrorist scum.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 17:57 |
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DeusExMachinima posted:I hate to break it to you but not only are we past that point but since 2012 Uncle Sam can fine you for not buying wheat seeds and fertilizer. No they explicitly can't do that. They can however tax you for any amount they want and then waive the tax if you buy a certain thing.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 18:18 |
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twodot posted:Why bother having a Supreme Court thread if I can't disagree with them? If I were to argue the government should release people arrested for marijuana possession would you start quoting Raich v Gonzales at me? Also please answer my question about who would even have standing to contest the relevant laws are Constitutional and the President has some obligation to follow them, and what remedy they would seek. I'm pretty familiar with the legal understanding of military officers, because that was literally my job for eight years. The Joint Chiefs or Combatant Commanders would be the ones receiving the order, and four star generals are nothing if not somewhat sophisticated political animals. Even if the White House tried to bypass the chain of command in an unprecedented way, the lowest ranking officer capable of coordinating something like a prisoner transport is going to be a senior Colonel, who again are usually old and experienced enough that unconditional obedience to exceptional and illegal orders is not a given. If I had received a phone call saying, "This is the President, I need you to do something unusual for me without your bosses finding out, pinky swear this is all legal and on the level", my most likely reaction would have been to report it to my Security Manager rather than comply. I would have no way of authenticating such an order without running it up the chain. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Jan 6, 2017 |
# ? Jan 6, 2017 18:35 |
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Dead Reckoning posted:I'd remind you that your original statement was that it was really weird that soldiers would consider an order to detain a foreign national indefinitely to be legal, but not one to transport and release said foreign national against the explicit will of Congress and statute. This betrays a lack of understanding of the law as it exists right now. quote:I'm pretty familiar with the legal understanding of military officers, because that was literally my job for eight years. The Joint Chiefs or Combatant Commanders would be the ones receiving the order, and four star generals are nothing if not somewhat sophisticated political animals. Also please answer my question about who would even have standing to contest the relevant laws are Constitutional and the President has some obligation to follow them, and what remedy they would seek.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 18:51 |
Serious question, genuinely curious: when was the last time an officer in an American army refused an illegal order and it did not ruin their career permanently?
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 18:59 |
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Twodot is 100% right, Obama could have had Democratic governors start appointing prisoners to the Senate every time there's a vacancy, then they'd be privileged from arrest on the way to Washington DC while Congress is in session. Okay conversation over, unless he wants to make an argument that a given course of action would be better than what Obama did, but he already said he has no intention of doing that so VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 6, 2017 |
# ? Jan 6, 2017 20:01 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:23 |
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twodot posted:Also please answer my question about who would even have standing to contest the relevant laws are Constitutional and the President has some obligation to follow them, and what remedy they would seek. Congress, would, for one. The supreme court would be the adjudicator, and the president would be required to follow their decision. This has happened before and will happen again. The president gets sued all the time. You seem to have no real understand about the way the law or the US government works.
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# ? Jan 6, 2017 22:35 |