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And more https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/895667763460530177 quote:U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller is bearing down on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as he directs a wide-ranging probe into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election. 
farraday fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:28
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evilweasel posted:i think the only thing keeping them potentially loyal is that trump does have the power to pardon them, so no matter what the offer from mueller is they can always try to leverage that for a pardon instead The presidential pardon being so sweeping really seems like a bad idea in retrospect. Have, like, the Supreme Court have to approve it or something idk. It's ridiculous how many of the president's powers are only held in check by impeachment.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:29
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exploded mummy posted:Yeah but he doesn't know what MySpace is To be fair, Myspace popularity died in 2008. Almost ten years ago.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:30
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evilweasel posted:yes, because anything that makes manafort more willing to flip on trump makes my job easier 
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Aug 10, 2017 16:30
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theflyingorc posted:The presidential pardon being so sweeping really seems like a bad idea in retrospect. The founding fathers, as it turns out, were not particularly good at forming a government.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:31
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Imagine a Trump White House trying to do a Spanish language version of their site. It'd be like that guy from your high school Spanish class who, every time he was called on, would start sweating, and would read random words out of the Spanish textbook in front of him, pronouncing all of them like English words, using the "to be" version of every verb because they never learned how to conjugate, until, finally, the teacher was sated with that morning's particular sadism, and would call on somebody else.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:32
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theflyingorc posted:The presidential pardon being so sweeping really seems like a bad idea in retrospect. Frankly the first thing that Democrats should do if they get into office is nail down some of the conventions that are only holding presidential power in check on the idea that the President doesn't want to be a dictator and probably scaling back some of the power in general. For a bunch of guys that hated kings, the founding fathers sure put a lot of power into one position. Like the fact we don't know what happens for sure if a guy breaks the law to get elected and then uses the Presidency to pardon himself for that and remains in power is a pretty big oversight. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:33
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biracial bear for uncut posted:To be fair, Myspace popularity died in 2008. I suddenly feel super old. I still remember Scene Queens and all the Fueled By Ramen & Drive Thru Records gossip. Radish posted:Frankly the first thing that Democrats should do if they get into office is nail down some of the conventions that are only holding presidential power in check on the idea that the President doesn't want to be a dictator and probably scaling back some of the power in general. For a bunch of guys that hated kings, the founding fathers sure put a lot of power into one position. Iirc, they actually didn't put as much power as the President has now into law. It was added bit by bit. Not to say the President was toothless or anything. Koalas March fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:33
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Nate RFB posted:I feel that there is not going to be enough time to realistically balk at a clean increase. If the GOP had settled on a clean increase a month ago and gone to the Dems to do so, that'd be one thing, but if they push it until the last minute like they are all but sure to do then there's not going to be enough time to negotiate on anything. disagree, they have plenty of time (a month and a half) to quietly convey their demands to ryan and to get legislative language written up it's not like ryan will walk into pelosi's office five minutes before zero hour and ask what she wants, he's going to be getting that information early specifically to use it as a club to beat republicans with - "look what i might have to agree to if you don't come to your loving senses"
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Aug 10, 2017 16:34
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biracial bear for uncut posted:To be fair, Myspace popularity died in 2008. 
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Aug 10, 2017 16:34
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Teddybear posted:The founding fathers, as it turns out, were not particularly good at forming a government. I dunno, the concept of the Senate just saved millions of people from losing healthcare, you gotta take the good with the bad.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:34
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theflyingorc posted:The presidential pardon being so sweeping really seems like a bad idea in retrospect. there's plenty of checks on the president, they just don't work when the congress is filled with craven treasonous lickspittles as well basically the founders anticipated a trump, they did not anticipate a modern republican party
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Aug 10, 2017 16:35
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pumpinglemma posted:A US default is only slightly less scary in global terms than the US nuking North Korea, and probably scarier than a conventional attack. Obviously the Democrats shouldn't The number one lesson we should've learned by now is just because Democrats are nice doesn't mean Republicans will be. gently caress 'em. They wanted to make the debt ceiling a negotiation time, now it is. Meanwhile the next time Dems have power they need to get rid of the debt ceiling entirely.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:35
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Koalas March posted:I suddenly feel super old. I still remember Scene Queens and all the Fueled By Ramen & Drive Thru Records gossip. Thanks that's interesting and I should read up more on it.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:36
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They've spent the years since dunking on her every chance they get.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:36
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Lightning Knight posted:The number one lesson we should've learned by now is just because Democrats are nice doesn't mean Republicans will be. one of the good arguments i have seen is that democrats shouldn't demand policy concessions for their votes: they should demand the defusing of the debt ceiling itself for their votes make the republicans complicit in the revoking of the debt ceiling so it can't be an idiot political issue in the midterms following a democratic president
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Aug 10, 2017 16:36
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Teddybear posted:The founding fathers, as it turns out, were not particularly good at forming a government. They didn't exactly have a lot of history to base it off of. America has always been an experiment, and a lot of flaws didn't show up until later. You can't really future-proof a system of government.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:36
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evilweasel posted:one of the good arguments i have seen is that democrats shouldn't demand policy concessions for their votes: they should demand the defusing of the debt ceiling itself for their votes That would be smart. Hence why they won't do that.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:37
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evilweasel posted:there's plenty of checks on the president, they just don't work when the congress is filled with craven treasonous lickspittles as well I mean - I'm not saying that there are no balances, but pardon power seems REAL bad. Is there a remedy against corrupt use of pardons outside of impeachment? The cure for the problem seems to be much, much more drastic than the problem, which isn't good.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:37
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Koalas March posted:Iirc, they actually didn't put as much power as the President has now into law. It was added bit by bit. Not to say the President was toothless or anything. yeah it was basically the FDR creation of the regulatory state - which is under the control of the President, not Congress - that dramatically increased presidential power, and the truman-era realization that "you know, a declaration of war doesn't actually mean anything"
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Aug 10, 2017 16:37
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theflyingorc posted:I mean - I'm not saying that there are no balances, but pardon power seems REAL bad. Is there a remedy against corrupt use of pardons outside of impeachment? there is not, aside from the arguments that self-pardons are ineffective and that the president would remain legally liable the pardon power probably should be fixed to permit a pardon to be revoked with, like, a 2/3rds vote of the House and Senate within a specified length of time
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Aug 10, 2017 16:40
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theflyingorc posted:I mean - I'm not saying that there are no balances, but pardon power seems REAL bad. Is there a remedy against corrupt use of pardons outside of impeachment? It's worth remembering that most of the design problems of the constitution make more sense if you remind yourself that they only expected rich white landowning men to be in government and for the constitution to only last about 20 years. 
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Aug 10, 2017 16:40
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Lightning Knight posted:It's worth remembering that most of the design problems of the constitution make more sense if you remind yourself that they only expected rich white landowning men to be in government and for the constitution to only last about 20 years. i think its only jefferson who actually thought that whole 20 year thing; the constitution's amendment provisions make it very clear they expected it to last. hell, the specific prohibition on banning the slave trade within 20 years, but allowing it afterwards, specifies they thought it would last more than 20 years
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Aug 10, 2017 16:42
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There Bias Two posted:They didn't exactly have a lot of history to base it off of. America has always been an experiment, and a lot of flaws didn't show up until later. You can't really future-proof a system of government. Counterpoint: only a moron would write a system that could create the election of 1800. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1800#Voting Had the Federalists been SLIGHTLY bigger assholes, the outgoing House could have taken the fact that the two Democratic Republicans candidates were tied for first to select a Federalist President - even though the incoming house was heavily leaning DR. There's a lot of great ideas in the constitution, but the government structure is merely OK and deserves no real praise.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:42
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Lightning Knight posted:It's worth remembering that most of the design problems of the constitution make more sense if you remind yourself that they only expected rich white landowning men to be in government and for the constitution to only last about 20 years. And also that the presidency was pretty much designed specifically for George Washington, who despite his flaws would probably never have used a pardon improperly.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:43
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What problem is the presidential pardon meant to solve? It seems extremely corrupt and despotic.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:43
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theflyingorc posted:Counterpoint: only a moron would write a system that could create the election of 1800. the 1800 problem was largely because of a much stupider idea: making the VP the runner-up instead of someone the president picked
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Aug 10, 2017 16:43
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Ventana posted:I get your point, but tbf I think you could get anyone to admit anything if you held a gun to their head I'm not saying "admit there were not millions of illegal votes or else!" I'd just glance up from the clipboard, pull out the gun, and say "ok, for this next question there is a correct answer. If you get it wrong, you die. OK, do you believe there were millions of illegal votes?" I believe that most of them knew drat well there weren't.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:44
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Lightning Knight posted:It's worth remembering that most of the design problems of the constitution make more sense if you remind yourself that they only expected rich white landowning men to be in government and for the constitution to only last about 20 years. Rich white landowning men are exactly the people who elected Trump.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:45
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Let's be real: there's a threshold to how smart they could have been while designing the thing if they didn't properly anticipate the inevitable slide into a two party system and the consequences of such a system. I've gotta figure they didn't make at least the House proportional as a gently caress you to England's system
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Aug 10, 2017 16:46
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Teddybear posted:The founding fathers, as it turns out, were not particularly good at forming a government. They founded a government with a system that worked then. It's like the 2nd Amendment and its complete irrelevance because if the government comes for you, they will have tanks and helicopters and thermobaric weapons. Not muskets. But the difficulty of updating the system is seen as one of its strong points.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:46
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Rigel posted:I'm not saying "admit there were not millions of illegal votes or else!" It would be, uh, easier to treat it as a politics trivia quiz. "Answer these 5 questions right and you win a $20 Starbucks gift card!" I think Republicans would become suddenly a little more enlightened about which country Obama was from and whether Trump won the popular vote.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:47
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Gort posted:What problem is the presidential pardon meant to solve? It seems extremely corrupt and despotic. a general pardon power is found in almost every form of government and is a good thing: it in essence allows the government to show mercy when it's justified. it was also put into the constitution as a practical safety valve in cases of rebellions, giving a president the ability to negotiate an end to such rebellions by providing binding pardons to people involved. finally, it simply flowed naturally from English law where the King had the power to issue pardons because he was the king, and because america was governed by english law and its legal systems derived from english law, by default they just assumed all powers that the english government had needed to go somewhere
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Aug 10, 2017 16:47
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Javes posted:I feel like there's little chance Trumps inner circle/associates of Trump will remain loyal when the heat is on from Mueller. Anyone with loyalty to Trump must have poor pattern recognition.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:48
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BarbarianElephant posted:Rich white landowning men are exactly the people who elected Trump. Hahaha what?
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Aug 10, 2017 16:49
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we have a lot of very stupid bits in our law from english law: our rules on forfeitures and how the state can seize things without actually putting their owner on trial come from english law that lets you sentence trees to death, and the notion of "sovereign immunity" (you can't sue the government unless the government lets you) is a dumb idea that derives from the english idea that all law and all courts come from the king, so it's obviously absurd he could be sued in his own courts
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Aug 10, 2017 16:50
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Thing is, a judge could sentence a rebel leniently if given that power and has a heck of a lot less incentive to use it for personal gain.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:50
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evilweasel posted:the 1800 problem was largely because of a much stupider idea: making the VP the runner-up instead of someone the president picked I don't hate the idea of the runner up getting the VP - except that electors got two votes. The other party being the Vice President wouldn't be awful in theory, I guess? The major problem with everything about the Electoral College is they, for some stupid reason, didn't expect it to be along party lines. I don't mind the idea of the EC* if it was actually careful men carefully selecting the best person for the job. But it literally was never that! 1788: Everyone picks Washington because he's Washington 1792: See above 1796 - Present: Every elector votes straight party, every time, lol @ careful decisionmaking *I'm not in love with it, but at least it would block Trump
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Aug 10, 2017 16:50
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Gort posted:What problem is the presidential pardon meant to solve? It seems extremely corrupt and despotic. It can be, but it can also be a really good thing. It's the same general power that, on a state level, allows governors to commute death sentences.
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Aug 10, 2017 16:51
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theflyingorc posted:I don't hate the idea of the losing party getting the VP - except that electors got two votes. The other party being the Vice President wouldn't be awful in theory, I guess? the vp being the runner-up means that in the event of a president dying, his political opponent becomes president but has no powers until then, so that was real dumb because of the incentives it set it's one thing for the losing party to get a position of some, but lesser, power: it's another for them to get zero power unless the winner dies, in which case they get all of it and yeah, that they didn't realize electors would be proxies is also insanely dumb
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Aug 10, 2017 16:52
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