Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I highly doubt Putin is concerned with the aesthetics of the White House
the man cheats in the olympics, he's exactly petty enough to care
US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
271–280 of 453 posts
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#272> 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.
We are, it appears now, a country of laws…uits.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#273> 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…
Do you expect elections are still a viable option in this circumstance? It's beginning to sound like the results will be just set to a default, like the last presidential election in Russia: "78%+ for Putin/Trump".
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#274Earlier 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.
One thing the founders definitely didn't see coming was the two party system, which eventually led to a single party controlling all thee branches of government.
Not really, no. The founders were not omniscient, but many of them publicly wrote about the problematic rise of political "factions" contrary to the general interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing the founders definitely didn't see coming was the two party system, which eventually led to a single party controlling all thee branches of government.
Go back and read Washington's farewell address. There's a section in there that addresses factions, and it's like Washington had access to the headlines from last week when he wrote it.
They fucked up the design if they didn’t want factions (yes, a common term at the time for what we call parties) and did so in a way that makes it nearly impossible to fix in practice.
The electoral college also never functioned the way it was supposed to, as in, broke almost immediately.
They also knew the Supreme Court was horrifyingly dangerous but their best answer was “uh, ignore them sometimes I guess?” Another couple sentences outlining a panel system instead of permanent Supreme Court members (which aren’t required by the constitution—the court is, fixed permanent members of it are not) could have done a lot to fix that flaw, though may have been impractical at the time due to travel and communication times before the train and telegraph.
It was an OK try for an early democratic constitutional state, but we really could have benefitted from a third attempt.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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a giant 147000 square mile space like Montana with 1.1 M people, 2.8% the size of California's population, gets 2 Senators regardless. That is, the Senate gives representation to empty land. That's pretty structural !
Yeah, that's not how things work. Senate can't pass anything unless the House agrees and the House is representative of the population. Also, footnote, we've been structuring governments this way for thousands of years. Rome, etc.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#277This seems like a bad decision to me. Not only does it seem not to be in the spirit of the law (you can still report but not as easily now) but it's not clear why they shut it down at all. Cost? Inefficiency? Just wasn't getting used much? They have a better solution? On the other hand, the US seems so partisan now that had the current administration told the world they were taking huma' rights abuse reporting seriou…
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Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#278Earlier 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.
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 Consti…
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Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#279> 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…
The context of all US law is that it is the implementation of the will of the people. There is currently political will to shift focus in the military to effective fighting power, as opposed to progressive values. I think this is because the electorate recognizes that military threats around the world are getting worse.
Ukrainians will tell you now, you can’t have peace without strength. Europeans are also beginning to realize this due to American leadership, hence they have all (but one) doubled NATO funding limits this year.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#280> 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…
> ...it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch.
There are, but the executive for decades (centuries?) has ignored law inconvenient to its goals, and the legislative has generally shrugged it off, hoping their guy will do the same down the road.
One such restraint? Declaring war. Yet how often has this power been abused by the executive since World War 2? Korea anyone? Vietnam? Central America? The Middle East?
There's been a lot of hand-wringing in this thread about what Trump has done and is doing. Truth is, he's just the latest player in the game we've all participated in, and he's good at it.
To stop him, we'd have to change the rules of the game, as Congress did in 2017 with the Russia sanctions bill.[1] I just don't see that happening 'cause... we're all hoping our guy will do the same (as Trump) down the road.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_America%27s_Adversa...>