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

bbc.com

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

#281

Post by avgDev »

jayd16 wrote: post #198
throw0101c wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The president might be protected from consequences according to the supreme court, but those answering to the president are not. Unless they are granted a blanket pardon beforehand. Then all you can really do is an "audit" for who did what, from which no charges can be laid.

Just lock them up anyway and pardon yourself for ignoring the pardon if that's how the game is played. The idea of a blanket pardon is absurd on its face and we're only allowing it because we're allowing political prosecution.

Or arrest them using ICE and make false claims. Or just make their life miserable and punish anyone who hires them.

In reality stuff like this feels like the beginning of an end.

I seriously don't know how anyone can look at what is happening right now and be okay with it.

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

#282

Post by efitz »

So there is no other way of reporting such abuses? This one web site that nobody had heard of before today, was our sole way of hearing complaints of this type?

Why is it that eliminating one particular web site is somehow a failure of the US Constitution?

Yes, Congress is dysfunctional. Welcome to the post 17th amendment world. Repeal that and make the House truly proportional instead of artificially limiting it to 435 members and you’ll go a long way towards fixing a lot of the current problems. Eliminate PACs and donation caps and enforce KYC for donations and we can see who is actually buying our legislators.

But on the main topic, the left in the US is seeking judicial intervention to block nearly every single action that the administration takes, and district court judges are handing down nationwide injunctions against the president on a weekly basis. If this is such a crisis, then go judge shopping and get an injunction.

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

#284

Post by wahnfrieden »

revnode wrote: post #276
zzzeek wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The house is similarly disproportionate

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

#285

Post by everdrive »

softwaredoug wrote: post #175
mikeyouse wrote: post #5

> 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.

You're not wrong, but Congress has been broken for a long, long time. Congress really doesn't do anything except for agree (if they've got a majority with the president) or disagree (if they're in the minority against the president) with the current president. They don't really make laws, they don't hold anyone accountable, they don't fund the government. They don't govern at all, they just try to keep getting re-elected.

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

#286

Post by lbrito »

varispeed wrote: post #252
docdeek wrote: post #64

This 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…

[flagged]

Deflection at its finest.

At least as a thought exercise, consider the possibility that the US administration was _always not great_ on its own merits, not as the fault of whatever foreign boogeyman-of-the-day.

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

#287

Post by rayiner »

mongol wrote: post #247
rayiner wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders came from England, which has the world's longest unbroken political tradition (apart from 11 years during the English Civil War). England has top-level cabinet positions that were established 800 years ago. So I doubt the founders would be surprised that their constitution was still in use 236 years later. Regardless, what the founders believed is relevant because they're the ones that wrote the currentl…

Is it really longer than the Catholic church?

Fair point.

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

#288

Post by vladms »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #199
lotsofpulp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is easy. Most people just don't care. They just want to live their lives. Their lives are not good, but they're not awful, they're aware there are a lot of people are worse off than them, and they know if they rock the boat too much they might get singled out and their life gets worse. The powers in charge recognise this, and just accept that absolute monarchy in their image is fine, and they can do what they wa…

True that most people don't care about who rules, but people do care of not living "much worse" than "before". That triggered a lot of revolutions before.

It does not look great, but I find risks mostly economical (not only in USA, everywhere) - if the situation will deteriorate even more abruptly (considering it already did a bit due to the pandemic "shock") then we will have a mess.

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

#289

Post by efitz »

thayne wrote: post #204
cheema33 wrote: post #90

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.

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.

They absolutely saw it coming and warned against it, but couldn’t figure out any durable way to prevent it.

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

#290

Post by notahacker »

jkestner wrote: post #162
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a population decides to let themselves be run this way then who is at fault? People get the leaders they deserve

We love to blame the common clay, don't we. You can win a majority of voters and lose an election. There are systemic problems, starting with money in politics, two senators per state, the electoral college and gerrymandering.

You can win a majority of voters and lose an election, but that's not what happened. 77 million people voted for Trump, and it's not like he acted like a mild mannered constitutional conservative with a sensible reform package and turned into a vindictive, chaotic wannabe autocrat whose closest thing to a redeeming feature is is stupidity afterwards. The electoral college and gerrymandering may be ludicrous, but that's not why he won, and nor is lack of funds for opponents. The system of checks and balances isn't what they were cracked up to be, but the reason he's dismantling it is because when he telegraphed that he was going to do it the people of the land cheered him so loudly anyone else that wanted their votes stepped in line.
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