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Earlier quoted context omitted.
"willing to participate" in this case means responding to a lawful subpoena and testifying truthfully.
And he could have chosen to lawfully refuse, as others have done. Simple.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-subpoe...
1. Why would I care? I actually like having more relevant ads. 2. Why should I care? If they're gonna have a border we should equip them to protect it. 3. Why should I care? I haven't done anything wrong. 4. No seriously, I swear I didn't do anything wrong. I never went to those Union meetings. You can check my track!
I think the poison here is government, not the tool. It makes sense for a government to look for location data to persecute its declared enemies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And he could have chosen to lawfully refuse, as others have done. Simple.
It is not lawful to refuse a Congressional subpoena [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-subpoe...
Fast-forward to today, where selling access to LEO is a 7-figure business for all of the telcos.
Never underestimate how lazy LEO are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not lawful to refuse a Congressional subpoena [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-subpoe...
Gross mischaractarization, that applies to individuals. The executive branch has the power to resist a subpoena. You can call that poor sportsmanship but your same article acknowledges that this bottleneck is real enough that a third choice is usually persued. Except, without a cooperative House and Senate that too can be negated. The reality is that if the Dems had a case they'd be winning in the courts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gross mischaractarization, that applies to individuals. The executive branch has the power to resist a subpoena. You can call that poor sportsmanship but your same article acknowledges that this bottleneck is real enough that a third choice is usually persued. Except, without a cooperative House and Senate that too can be negated. The reality is that if the Dems had a case they'd be winning in the courts.
Honest question, you don't see a danger to our system of checks and balances if the executive gets to block impeachment investigations?
On a more basic level, nothing the current POTUS has done to defend himself is something that the legislative branch couldn't take off the table in time. The country isn't burning down, the economy is fine, by any metric of genuine significance this is just an extremely unpopular president (not that I would claim he's trying to be popular).
The problem with the American system is that, short of staging a coup or actually burning the country down, pivoting before problematic people leave is hard. In my opinion this has the benefit that anything that seems like good legislation from the position of the currently weaker party will still seem like good legislation when they become the strong party again.
In terms of consequences I'm more concerned about things like both parties having noticed that executive orders are an easy way to circumvent the legislative process. My hope is that after election season is over, we'll see more challenges to executive orders that will result in firmer precedents for what a POTUS can and cannot do with an executive order.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gross mischaractarization, that applies to individuals. The executive branch has the power to resist a subpoena. You can call that poor sportsmanship but your same article acknowledges that this bottleneck is real enough that a third choice is usually persued. Except, without a cooperative House and Senate that too can be negated. The reality is that if the Dems had a case they'd be winning in the courts.
Honest question, you don't see a danger to our system of checks and balances if the executive gets to block impeachment investigations?
No, because its pretty clear that there is no system of checks and balances curbing executive abuse except when the systematic overrepresentation designed into the Constitution fails, barring the rare and unstable condition of a partisan disalignment (which has happened only a handful of times in US history), because the systematic factional overrepresentation in the Senate and in the Electoral College are aligned (and the overrepresentation is stronger in the Senate than the Electoral College.)
There would only be a system of checks and balances for executive abuse if the decisive actor in removal were the House rather than the Senate.
Today came the news that people who testified against the President are being fired: including Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland. This is an out-of-control administration. They may well use cellphone location data to track movements of political opponents as well. These are scary times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest question, you don't see a danger to our system of checks and balances if the executive gets to block impeachment investigations?
> Honest question, you don't see a danger to our system of checks and balances if the executive gets to block impeachment investigations? No, because its pretty clear that there is no system of checks and balances curbing executive abuse except when the systematic overrepresentation designed into the Constitution fails, barring the rare and unstable condition of a partisan disalignment (which has happened only a hand…
Both parties play the electoral college and both the college as well as pandering have existed since before Trump, Obama, Clinton, etc. The Democrats lost to Trump for the same reason Obama beat the Republicans, they didn't play as well as the other team.
A completely submissive party apparatus of spineless functionaries nodding of presidential decrees.
Unrestricted access to everyone cellphones records... check
ensure all communication is monitored by pressuring tech companies with regressive laws to drop end to end encryption ... check
Facial recognition AI provided by tech companies... check
A dedicated presidential TV channel broadcasting official spin and fictional realities ... check
Aggressive enforcement action and internment camps for minorities ... check
Whistleblowers being intimidated and retaliated against ... check
China sure is looking bad these days /s