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It seems beside the point that it's a sinecure.
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Jul 4, 2023 18:54
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Google Jeb Bush posted:The Biden administration not only didn't coup or lawfare Lula, they told Bolsonaro and the Brazilian military not to. You don’t give Elliot Abrams a position in your government if you intend to take a hands off approach to Latin America.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:08
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Jen heir rick posted:So does anyone want to take a stab at defending or explaining this poo poo? Cause why the gently caress would Biden nominate this guy? As far as I know this guy should be in jail and shouldn’t be anywhere near any levers of power. Discendo Vox posted:You may want to rethink how you phrase requests for information, so that people who can provide that information will feel less like they are walking into your fist. Lol, he could nominate literally anyone (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 4, 2023 19:30
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Lol, he could nominate literally anyone The article says that at least three of the board's seven members are required to be Republicans, and all nominations require confirmation by the Senate, so probably not literally anyone.
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Jul 4, 2023 19:43
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I'm pretty sure he could also just... not do anything? It's still half-empty so it's not like filling it has been a requirement.Main Paineframe posted:The article says that at least three of the board's seven members are required to be Republicans, and all nominations require confirmation by the Senate, so probably not literally anyone. No, it says no more than 4 can be from 1 party. Abrams would be the 4th member on it
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Jul 4, 2023 19:45
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Probably someone Biden wanted to owe him a small favor asked for Abrams to get the position and Biden was like, "sure whatever," since it's a completely powerless role. It doesn't really seem like the "only four members max from one party" rule is affecting this decision as there are only currently four members, and one (a former House rep) was appointed by Bush. The other three (an investment banker, a longtime state dept diplomat, and a political strategist) are Dems. So it would be possible to put another Democrat on the board - but perhaps the Senate is refusing to confirm any Democrats unless a second Republican is put on the commission first. But it also doesn't really matter because it doesn't do anything.
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Jul 4, 2023 20:14
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There are other Democratic nominees already submitted to the Senate.
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Jul 4, 2023 20:17
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Were there no Republicans he could appoint who weren't infamous war mongers?
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Jul 4, 2023 20:23
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Nucleic Acids posted:You don’t give Elliot Abrams a position in your government if you intend to take a hands off approach to Latin America. There's a thing I try to do to calibrate against my own inherent bias, particularly in cases like this where I've never heard of the group in my entire life and therefore my initial response is mostly gut feeling. I flip the ideological situation entirely and see how I feel about that. In this case, what if Biden nominated an open socialist with a long history of fighting for social justice and non-intervention or humanitarian aid in Latin America? this also assumes that I would have heard of that nomination despite it being much less rage-inducing, but let's make that assumption hell, it's possible one of the democratic members or noms is good, it's not like i'd know from current discussion I'm pretty sure that if presented with that situation and about the current amount of information, I'd consider it to be a minor good thing of little practical import. No Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, for sure, and not a total mockery of a crumb for the left elements of Biden's coalition administration. By extension, I guess I have to consider this a minor bad thing of little practical import. I'm intellectually interested in who bent Biden's ear about this, maybe moreso than in the hypothetical case because there are more less-warcrimey conservative shitheads than Abrams out there. We probably wouldn't have mighty posting opinions about one good nominee vs another. The morally correct answer would be "no, the job I'm giving Abrams is 'defendant at the Hague', how about Generic Shithead #46". I'm not going to spend a lot of time and energy fretting about his nomination unless it comes out that this post is more important than it currently seems.
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Jul 4, 2023 20:43
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let's look at the apparent current members Current head is Vivian Walker, professor and diplomat with a bunch of publications. I imagine we could construct a pretty good picture of her if we dug through them, I'm not going to be doing that. William Hybl, boardmember of the International Republican Institute, a republican-leaning nonprofit that I don't know a whole lot about. Seems inoffensive on the surface. Also a big US Olympics administration guy. Sim Farar, rich Los Angeles guy. Anne Wedner, who seems pretty interested from this and a couple other links in improving the lot of poorer urban communities in the States. Seems good. She's also going to be replaced upon confirmation of James J Blanchard... former governor of Michigan? Michigoons (and possibly Canadagoons) presumably have more of an opinion than I do, seems like a mixed bag with neither the negatives nor positives really standing out. e: also if anyone cares it's an unpaid position other than normal government travel expenses, which generally isn't great for anything with influence but does mean Abrams wouldn't be getting much in the way of federal $$$ Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 20:59
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DynamicSloth posted:Were there no Republicans he could appoint who weren't infamous war mongers? That particular bench is pretty loving empty.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:14
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Again, the way these bipartisan chartered entities function is the Republicans send the current President the names of the people they will approve for the Republican appointees.
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Jul 4, 2023 21:21
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Discendo Vox posted:Again, the way these bipartisan chartered entities function is the Republicans send the current President the names of the people they will approve for the Republican appointees. You've just said it's meaningless position with no power, why does it need filling? Why does this need doing, what good does it do? If the point is to "exist and occasionally put the name on a report" then there is no advantage to just not doing anything with the committee. It's a small thing, but it just seems daft to go "well this do nothing entity needs to be staffed with this particular war criminal or else [???] " when you could ignore it and not bother.
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Jul 4, 2023 22:19
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Josef bugman posted:You've just said it's meaningless position with no power, why does it need filling? Why does this need doing, what good does it do? If the point is to "exist and occasionally put the name on a report" then there is no advantage to just not doing anything with the committee. By forwarding a nomination, it circumvents any accusations Rs bring up later about not filling posts. One major issue with Trump's administration is he simply left a ton of nominations vacant because he didn't give a poo poo - this prevents that as we ramp up to the 2024 campaign season.
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Jul 4, 2023 22:48
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I will say, as someone who's often academic-adjacent and policy-ish, I'm pretty mellow about "they produce an annual report and occasionally indirectly talk to the president" (although that can have an impact, maxxing out at "was the last person to talk to Donald Trump before he took a stupid action"). The thing that tickles that same part of my brain is that apparently they put together and run some symposia and conferences and things. That has the potential to move the noodle in some small ways. Still not a particularly big deal, but makes it slightly less of a nothingburger than ambassador to *rolls dice* Andorra. what i'm saying here is, if i think of it i'll check on what they're doing once a year or so and see if Abrams is hosting a panel on "child sex trafficking: good idea, or great idea?" e:  double e: jokes aside i should also see what the advisory council has done in the recent-ish past as far as that Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 22:59
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Shooting Blanks posted:By forwarding a nomination, it circumvents any accusations Rs bring up later about not filling posts. One major issue with Trump's administration is he simply left a ton of nominations vacant because he didn't give a poo poo - this prevents that as we ramp up to the 2024 campaign season. So in order to stop the Republicans from filling the posts with human garbage, we... fill the posts with human garbage? Nobody gives a poo poo what Republicans think.
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Jul 4, 2023 23:26
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Rochallor posted:So in order to stop the Republicans from filling the posts with human garbage, we... fill the posts with human garbage? No see if democrats just play nice with the republicans one more time and act with decorum surely they’ll return the favor. I get the bipartisan committee thing and most don’t want to go back to the spoils system but Abrams is kind of uniquely terrible. If he got it as part of a deal I hope it was one hell of a deal.
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Jul 4, 2023 23:35
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Rochallor posted:Nobody gives a poo poo what Republicans think. It would be an improvement if this were the case. Most likely this is some kind of backscratching deal Biden has with some terrible ghoul that will allow him to get something he wants. This particular sex pest war monger is probably some other rear end in a top hat's friend and in return for getting him on this committee that other person will do ... something that Biden wants. It might not be anything good or useful, and probably isn't because republicans can't be either, but I have no connections in DC so 
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Jul 4, 2023 23:55
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if Biden nominating that guy (and it being discussed here) prevents a single poster from voting in 2024 it will have been considered a smash success by a lot of d&d posters (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 5, 2023 00:07
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Tatsuta Age posted:if Biden nominating that guy (and it being discussed here) prevents a single poster from voting in 2024 it will have been considered a smash success by a lot of d&d posters Which posters are you talking about?
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Jul 5, 2023 01:19
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gently caress, but we here in SA miss the Great War on Terror. Bush, Cheney and cronies all hyped up on finally annexing the Middle east, they basically forgot we existed and let us have some of the best years, without too many coups (Venezuela 2002 being the eception that proves the rule). But when it died down and the financial crisis hit, that loving snake Obama was only too happy to slap Lula's back and call him The Man while sticking the knife in. Maybe the clock started ticking the moment the Pré-Sal oil reserves were discovered, or maybe it never stopped ticking. (Said reserves have been properly privatized after the labor government was ousted, of course). The main reason the US didn't back Bolsonaro this time around is that he's an unreliable moron, not that he's a monster. He sucks up to Putin half the time and is too visibly connected to the alt-right crew that used to hang around Trump.
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Jul 5, 2023 03:37
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Discendo Vox posted:You may want to rethink how you phrase requests for information, so that people who can provide that information will feel less like they are walking into your fist. Personally I wouldn't ever nominate a war criminal to be in any position whatsoever.
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Jul 5, 2023 04:42
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Pobrecito posted:Personally I wouldn't ever nominate a war criminal to be in any position whatsoever. Inmate?
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Jul 5, 2023 05:10
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Yeah the correct thing to do here would have been nothing. Or nominate some nobody who doesn't have a long history of subverting democracy and covering up literal crimes against humanity. There's really no defending this.
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Jul 5, 2023 05:28
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Fister Roboto posted:Yeah the correct thing to do here would have been nothing. Or nominate some nobody who doesn't have a long history of subverting democracy and covering up literal crimes against humanity. There's really no defending this. Hard to deliver on your campaign promises about bipartisanship if you don't grant Republicans a Trump war criminal or two.
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Jul 5, 2023 05:42
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Fister Roboto posted:There's really no defending this. Fortunately for politicians, they haven't felt the need to defend themselves to us about anything for quite some time. Hell, they honestly don't even need to now, plenty of political tribalists will do all the defending for them so they can focus on grifting and appealing to the donors whose opinions they actually do care about.
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Jul 5, 2023 05:42
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Pobrecito posted:Personally I wouldn't ever nominate a war criminal to be in any position whatsoever. Henry Kissinger was right there. If it's a do-nothing post, then give it to the 100-yr-old war criminal, not the sprightly 75-yr-old war criminal.
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Jul 5, 2023 06:27
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Kissinger is too uncontroversial in DC for the GOP to nominate.
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Jul 5, 2023 10:06
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Sephyr posted:The main reason the US didn't back Bolsonaro this time around is that he's an unreliable moron, not that he's a monster. He sucks up to Putin half the time and is too visibly connected to the alt-right crew that used to hang around Trump. It's because our different administrations have different policies, kind of like how Lula and Bolsonaro have different policies. Trump would have backed Bolsonaro.
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Jul 5, 2023 12:47
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Jen heir rick posted:So does anyone want to take a stab at defending or explaining this poo poo? Cause why the gently caress would Biden nominate this guy? As far as I know this guy should be in jail and shouldn’t be anywhere near any levers of power. It's one of those committees that legally requires balance from both parties and the Senate leader of the party out of power nominates their candidates. He was chosen by McConnell and Biden didn't care enough about the advisory position to start a legal fight that would impact the way they appoint FEC, FCC, and SEC members.
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Jul 5, 2023 14:42
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Biden didn't care enough Thread title. Campaign slogan Biden does all kinds of messaging, why not the kind where he rubs the Republican's nose in poo poo and everyone cheers him on? We know they are evil, he knows, high minded meetings with evil is not a noble cause (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 15:00
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Fister Roboto posted:Yeah the correct thing to do here would have been nothing. Or nominate some nobody who doesn't have a long history of subverting democracy and covering up literal crimes against humanity. There's really no defending this. Apparently there is, so far I've read that it's ok to give warmongers positions if they don't matter so why care, and that since Republicans nominated the guy poor little Biden was practically forced to give him the position. Either way, it's not Biden fault and/or who cares, it's Dark Brandon get over it.
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Jul 5, 2023 15:28
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A Trump-appointed federal judge has issued an injunction against government agencies pressuring social-media companies to censor views that the government in its sole wisdom determines are too harmful to be seen & heard. The lawsuit was initiated by the attorneys general of Missouri & Louisiana. quote:A federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, handing a win to GOP states in a lawsuit accusing the government of going too far in its effort to combat Covid-19 disinformation. It's too bad that speech being protected from government interference has become the domain of the right, given that the first half of my life most battles against government censorship were from the left. Also lol at CNN putting air quotes around the word censorship given what we now know. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 16:18
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I'd like to hope that Biden has bigger priorities right now than picking a fight with Congress over appointing a former member of three presidential administrations to a powerless advisory board. And I'm not really sure why people are acting shocked about it, given that I don't think Biden has ever claimed to represent a meaningful break from decades of bipartisan foreign policy toward South America. As an example of another priority he might have, Biden has started student loan forgiveness again through a different legal basis, instead of dropping the matter entirely as so many predicted he would. In the meantime, although the payments pause cannot be legally continued, he's putting in place a number of programs designed to reduce payments and generally ease things for borrowers. Or how about Biden again calling for stricter gun control laws in the wake of a number of holiday-weekend mass shootings? Or how about the fact that economists are now saying that we might end up dodging a recession after all, as inflation slows and various economic metrics (including consumer confidence) improve, and the labor market remains generally robust. Or how about the fact that a couple of GOP senators are delaying the appointments and promotions of nonpartisan career foreign service employees out of concerns that the employees are too woke. This is on top of the already-extensive blocking and delaying of various appointees - Senator Vance is opposing Justice Department appointments in retaliation for the Trump indictment, Senator Tuberville is opposing military officer promotions because the military is paying for members to travel to other states for abortions, and Manchin is opposing all EPA nominees in retaliation against some EPA emissions reduction regulations. Or if you'd prefer election news, how about the fact that the DeSantis campaign is in dire straits, with even his own campaign officials admitting that he faces an "uphill battle", and outside political analysts suggesting that his in-person appearances at campaign events are actually making things worse because everyone who sees him in person hates him. Or if you just want random amusing political happenings, the White House was briefly evacuated Sunday night after a mysterious white powder was found in a common area. The emergency was quickly resolved as rapid testing showed that the powder wasn't some kind of chemical weapon...but the Secret Service has now been tasked with investigating who left cocaine lying around in the White House.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:25
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...what *do* we know now? I'm not sure what you are talking about - not that it's impossible but I can't think of a specific incident and a quick search is bringing up old news from last year about Meta threatening to pull all news from Facebook.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:27
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Willa Rogers posted:A Trump-appointed federal judge has issued an injunction against government agencies pressuring social-media companies to censor views that the government in its sole wisdom determines are too harmful to be seen & heard. The right has no interest in doing that, though? Like they have been making every effort left and right to make all kinds of protected free speech illegal (see all the anti-LGBTQ+ laws being passed in conservative states across the US). This order is pretty clearly referencing the dumb Twitter files, where the government flagged things that were against the Twitter TOS and then Twitter independently took those down. I can see an argument being made for that being inappropriate (of course they're not going to flag things against the TOS that they don't mind being up), but the idea that free speech is the "domain of the right" is pretty ludicrous.
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Jul 5, 2023 16:29
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Edit: nevermind, I'm wrong
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Jul 5, 2023 16:31
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Twincityhacker posted:...what *do* we know now? I'm not sure what you are talking about - not that it's impossible but I can't think of a specific incident and a quick search is bringing up old news from last year about Meta threatening to pull all news from Facebook. We know from various sources that the algorithms that run the backend of "engagement metrics" largely favor and spread right wing extremism, rather than subdue it. We also know that the government officials who did make calls to social media executives did so at the behest of trump being a little bitch that people were mean to him. Essentially this case is "man who is doing something declares that the thing he is doing is bad and nobody should be able to do the thing except him." It has nothing to do with free speech, but the concept of what "free speech" means might be so warped at this point that the supremes can just be like "oh, yeah, everyone has to hear everything republicans have to say and no one can be mean to them about it because that's the rules of free speech." e2a: Lemming posted:The right has no interest in doing that, though? Like they have been making every effort left and right to make all kinds of protected free speech illegal (see all the anti-LGBTQ+ laws being passed in conservative states across the US). This order is pretty clearly referencing the dumb Twitter files, where the government flagged things that were against the Twitter TOS and then Twitter independently took those down. I can see an argument being made for that being inappropriate (of course they're not going to flag things against the TOS that they don't mind being up), but the idea that free speech is the "domain of the right" is pretty ludicrous. So, on its face, yes. That is entirely correct. But the decades long war against people correcting them or being cowed by the PC or woke police or whatever has made it extremely common for people to think of free speech as some kind of absolutist notion that everyone has a right to be heard by everyone instead of like, protecting people from government censure when speaking out against the government. Or to paraphrase a supreme court justice -- the mere false premise of an idea does not by itself present a problem to its use as a constitutional litmus test whenever we feel like it. Ershalim fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 16:36
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Willa Rogers posted:A Trump-appointed federal judge has issued an injunction against government agencies pressuring social-media companies to censor views that the government in its sole wisdom determines are too harmful to be seen & heard. The specific "censorship" cited in the lawsuit is flagging (not requiring them to take down) false health claims about Covid during the pandemic. The lawsuit is based on Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" and weird conspiracy theories. The actual brief itself is pretty bonkers and the Judge is endorsing some crazy theories from the plaintiffs. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/injunction-in-missouri-et-al-v/7ba314723d052bc4/full.pdf It specifically enjoins individual people who used to work for the government from using the report function on Twitter. It also applies to everyone in the specific agencies he cited right down to custodians and people in the mailroom because the Judge is worried that the head of the CDC will enlist a janitor to report posts on twitter with their personal account. It is filled with sloppy law citations and typos:  It also claims that Biden was President in 2020 and blames the federal government for creating "an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth." because they were publicly telling people to not take horse de-worming medication in 2021 to treat Covid. The Judge also agrees with the Missouri AG's opinion that the Biden administration saying the 2020 election wasn't stolen via ballots made of bamboo shipped in from China could infringe on free speech rights because a significant amount of Americans believe the 2020 election was stolen and the question is disputed because nobody has ever provided proof that it 100% didn't happen. https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/doc-144-2---exhibit-a-chan.pdf It's just weird and wild in so many ways. It also prevents anyone from engaging with the spam filter settings on their account on Instagram... for some reason?
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Jul 5, 2023 16:39
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's just weird and wild in so many ways. It also prevents anyone from engaging with the spam filter settings on their account on Instagram... for some reason? Anyone in the government, or anyone in the country? Is Instagram's spam filter now a first amendment violation?
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Jul 5, 2023 16:41
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