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US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

bbc.com

211–220 of 453 posts

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#212
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a different side takes control of the justice department they may choose to go after all those who broke the law by order of this president. The president might be protected from consequences according to the supreme court, but those answering to the president are not. This administration has set the standard that the justice department can be weaponized against political enemies. The ratchet only goes one way i…

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I think the Clintons might take issue with who was weaponizing the justice department when. From Starr to Bengazi...

Like, do you truly believe Biden started this? What was the first act?

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congress should get around to impeaching and convicting the president then! I hope you know that Congress has abdicated all of their responsibilities to the president. I don't know if the founders ever saw this coming.

How do you mitigate when 2/3rd of voters support, at least tacitly, the lawlessness?

The next time someone says "the other guy's not much better!" I am going to strangle and choke them.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law. The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

> Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-factor repeal of the law. Yes, but why is that surprising? If a majority of any legislature doesn't care to see a law enforced, they could vote to repeal the law anyway. It's only because of the artifice of the filibuster in the U.S. system that there's a meaningful difference between those two things.

I agree, I'm not sure it is surprising.

(there would be tremendous oversight if the GOP was in power in Congress, and the President was a Dem)

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One must laud the transparency this administration has introduced. What transparency? What is transparent about running a meme coin that anyone in the world can bribe- sorry, "invest" in with no trace of who they are while you're President? As for the topic at hand: Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage so I don't believe it's a deliberate effort at "transparency"

> Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage It confuses me how anyone could look at what's happening in the world and see a lack of a plan. Trump administration seems to actually be unusually focused on foreign policy in this term and using geopolitical statecraft to upend the arrangements that were not working in favor of the US. The tariffs to force countries to choose US or China, putting the…

There is a plan, but it is rather half baked and naive.

>putting the fear of Russia in Europe to pump up their defense spending

At the same time as refusing weapons sales to US allies and restricting intelligence sharing. Thereby forcing those countries to spend on European weapons rather than the US ones they have bought for the last 70 years. Doesn't sound great for the US tbh

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#217

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law". We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive…

TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law. The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

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Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#218

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law". We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive…

TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law. The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

It's not just a structural advantage, it's a de facto suspension of the Constitution.

Political parties are in theory subordinate to the Constitution, but when the executors and interpreters of the law are first and foremost agents of a political party, and they refuse to be constrained by the Constitution, that's the ballgame. You have a self-coup.

What we are witnessing is the aftermath of the self-coup, the Constitution is just a polite fiction that must be given lip service to prevent the already massive protests from turning into an outright color revolution.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#219
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s next: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/22/headlines/trump_says_... > Trump Says It Is “Really Illegal” for Journalists to Give His Administration Negative Coverage https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/really-i... > The president concluded that when coverage of someone is “bad” 97% of the time, “that’s no longer free speech.” > “They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad,” he told repo…

> > Trump Says It Is “Really Illegal” for Journalists to Give His Administration Negative Coverage This is not far away from "defamation" in western world. I'm not siding with Trump here, but every western politician seem to think that he/she/it can do whatever he/she/it wants and every criticism must be regarded as defamation.

Well, he's not talking about politicians, he's talking about reporting of his own behavior and actions.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad you're getting down voted because you're correct that congress is where the problem is. They could stop most of what he's doing, but choose not to. But "Every check and balance is working" is clearly wrong.

I would argue it is working. The democratically elected congress just agrees with what he is doing. Whether they agree due to genuine belief or fear of him calling them out, doesn't really matter. We should be electing people that have a spine, if we don't then that is still democracy working. Checks and balances are there. Many people just don't like the choices they are making

Say a prosecutor is elected and literally never prosecutes crimes. Any crime. Ever. Despite laws on the books stating they are, in some cases that have in-fact come up, required to. But this prosecutor keeps getting re-elected, and nobody enforces the laws about their having to bring certain cases.

Both of the following may be true:

1) The prosecutor is doing what a plurality of voters want.

2) The office of prosecutor is not functioning correctly, as defined by law (“has failed” or “is broken” would be other ways of saying this)

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